Zero Sum
by Thefirstandlast
Summary: It wouldn't be enough for him to kill her. He was going to destroy everything she'd ever been.
1. Chapter 1

Another alternate second half of season 15, because I'm an awful person.

Notes: It's a bad story filled with bad things. Don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

1.

Near the start of the new year, a man fresh off two convictions of 25 to life was transferred to Riker's prison. He was a high profile prisoner, his arms and legs shackled as he came inside, but he walked as though it was nothing but an early morning stroll, surveying the yellowed walls and steel bars with interest. He spoke only when spoken to, showed no hint of concern at the prospect of a lifetime in a cage.

Prison, more than almost anywhere else, was a place of hierarchies, and within the first day of his arrival, the local rulers of the roost swaggered over to him in the prison yard. The policy with any new prisoners was to explain - as pointedly as necessary - how exactly things worked. But he watched them approach with eerie indifference, staring at them with the cold empty eyes of a shark. And one by one they quailed, somehow finding themselves turning away.

The guards had all heard his story on the news, and were warned the prisoner could be trouble before he arrived. For a while, they watched him with caution. But they found he was polite and cooperative, a model inmate. Soon they left him alone as well. He made no friends or enemies among the other prisoners, started no fights, made no waves. He spent most of his time alone, seemingly lost in his thoughts. Some of the others laughed, calling him a head case, but a few found themselves uneasy. There was a certain tension in his walk, in his waiting, that reminded them of nothing so much as a tiger in a pit, eyeing the crumbling sides with too much interest.

A month later, he disappeared

The alarm was raised and press conferences were held. A manhunt ensued as tips poured in and cops swept the city. All of it came up empty. It was as though the man was a ghost, a myth made of nightmares and dust.

As the weeks dragged into months, the search was slowly scaled down, then put on the backburner. Wherever he was, he clearly wasn't in New York anymore.

"And I know it doesn't count for much," added Lieutenant Murphy, the man who'd been in charge of the search, "but I doubt you'll ever have to deal with him again. You won and he lost, and he's smart enough not to push his luck by coming back."

The cop who'd brought the man down gave Murphy a small, twisted smile. "If that's what you really think," she said, "you never knew him well enough to catch him."

But for a while, it seemed like he might be right. There was no sign of the man at all, no threats or messages, no crimes with his MO. It was as though the man had disappeared off the face of the earth and everyone seemed to think he was gone for good.

And sometimes in her weakest moments, sometimes in the full dark of night when she lay staring at the ceiling above her bed, exhaustion pulling her towards sleep even as memory kept her awake, sometimes Olivia Benson could almost believe it too.

Almost.

* * *

Three months after Lewis disappeared from his prison cell, Olivia paused at her apartment door, struck by a sudden sense of being watched. Her heart beat faster but she didn't let it show, her hand drifting almost casually to the gun at her hip as her eyes scanned the area. The hallway was still and empty. The faint sound of voices filtered through the nearby walls, a mother scolding her child, a man talking over the sound of a television. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Even so, she didn't go inside, looking down the hall once more. She ignored her instincts at her own peril – she'd learned that the hard way last year. Though nowadays, she was never sure if she could really trust her instincts either. There had been too many false alarms, too many bad calls.

And what did she expect? Only months after she'd started at SVU, a man had held a knife to her throat and had told her that he'd always be in her head. And he'd been wrong. He'd been a mere blip in her life, someone who'd made her uneasy for a few days and then been mostly forgotten. She'd looked him up casually a few years ago and found that he'd died of a heart attack in prison, a banal end to a man who'd thought so much of himself.

But after fourteen years on the job, she finally understood. She knew what it meant to have someone in her head. To have every action tainted by someone else, to jump at every noise wondering if the shadow in her nightmares would emerge into life, gun in hand, a cold smile on his face.

She wondered how anyone could live like this. And then she reminded herself she had no choice.

She opened the door and went inside.

The kitchen lights were off when she entered, and that was the first sign that something really was amiss. Power bill be damned, she never let the apartment go completely dark anymore. If someone was waiting for her, she wanted to see them coming. Brian forgot sometimes, but he'd been pretty good about it recently. Beyond that, there was simply a sense of wrongness in the air, some smell or sensation that made her breath quicken, her heart beat even faster.

Instead of bolting like her mind was screaming at her to do, she flipped on the light switch, gun in hand as the apartment was flooded in soft fluorescent light. No one was waiting for her in the shadows. But in the center of the room lay a very still form, face turned away, framed by pieces of a shattered lamp.

Olivia swallowed, her legs carrying her forward almost against her will. She cleared the rest of the apartment before allowing herself to approach the body, trembling with dread.

It was a woman, her face unnaturally pale under the living room lights, her blonde hair glinting against the hardwood floor. It made for an almost painful contrast with the bright red of the blood pooled under her head – it had barely started to dry, a clinical part of Olivia's mind noted. This hadn't happened too long ago. She could see the dent in the skull that had probably been from the fatal blow.

But that wasn't what made Olivia step back, her hands over her mouth, her shoes crunching over glass. The dead woman's features were all too familiar.

Amanda Rollins was lying dead on her living room floor.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

No matter how long you'd been on the job, Olivia thought, no matter the horrors you'd seen or fought, you were never prepared for when crime happened in your own life.

Cops of all stripes swarmed all over her apartment, taking pictures, talking loudly. The murder of one of their own was considered the ultimate crime, and through the carefully constrained voices in her apartment, she could hear the great gears of the law enforcement war machine rumbling to furious life, preparing to roll over anything in its path.

Olivia sat on the ground outside her own door, head in her hands, too stunned to really process what was happening. There was no grief yet, though she could feel it building in a vast wave behind her eyes, like a flood behind a straining levee. But right now she couldn't quite believe it, couldn't get the idea of Rollins's death through her head. There was guilt, though. Through the wall behind her, detectives were collecting evidence, drawing conclusions, but she was already pretty sure what they would find.

She could have stopped this. She could have prevented it with a bullet through the head of a fallen man nine months ago, but she hasn't done it. And now someone she cared about had paid the price.

The sudden pounding of footsteps made her look up. Amaro was rushing towards her down the hallway, out of breath, his dark hair windblown.

"I heard them say your address on the radio," he said without preamble. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'm –" she started to say, but then shook her head. "It wasn't me."

"They said it was an officer down." Amaro stared at her with desperate intensity, pleading with her silently for a denial, for reassurance that it was a mistake.

Olivia closed her eyes for a moment, unable to speak, as though never saying the words would mean it wasn't true. "It was Amanda."

At that moment, the crime scene techs came through the door, wheeling out a long black bag on a stretcher. Amaro watched them pass, his face frozen.

"No," he said finally.

She swallowed. "I can't believe it either."

"How – what happened? What was she even doing here?"

"I don't know," she whispered.

Amaro calmed himself visibly, forcing himself to speak evenly. "Was it Lewis?"

"I don't know," she said again, though they both knew the answer. Of course it was Lewis. No one else would be so brazen. No one else could have pulled this off. "I came home and she was there."

He nodded, though he wasn't looking at her. He stared down the hall, where the stretcher with the formless black back had disappeared behind elevator doors.

"I saw her two hours ago," he said blankly.

Olivia was saved from having to think of a response by the appearance of two men, their faces slightly familiar.

"Sergeant Benson?" one of them said. "I'm Lieutenant Garrett, from Homicide. This is my lead detective, Bill Fletcher. We'll be heading this investigation."

She nodded wordlessly.

"I know this must be hard for you, but we'd like you to come down to the station to give your statement while your memory is fresh. We're going to leave no stone unturned in this case, I promise you."

"Right," she said, taking a breath. "Could you give me a minute please?"

"Of course."

She pushed herself to her feet, feeling wearier than she'd been in months, then turned to Amaro. "Do me a favor? Call Brian. He's still at work. He needs to know what happened. And call Fin too. I don't want him finding out through the news," Both of these tasks were very much her job but she couldn't find the strength to face them. Amaro didn't seem to mind anyway, straightening unconsciously at being given a duty.

"I'll get right on it," he said, seeming to shake out of his daze, though his eyes still looked blank. "If you guys need somewhere to stay tonight, my place is open."

She managed some fraction of a smile. "I don't know how long this is going to take. But thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

With that she turned away, following the detectives towards the elevator.

* * *

For a long time, SVU and Homicide had been on good terms, happy to collaborate on cases without too many pissing contests over jurisdiction. Cragen especially had been close with many of their detectives, having risen through their ranks. But most of Cragen's generation of cops had retired or moved on by now and there was a new set of detectives staring at her as she walked through their squad room. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but she thought quite a few of them bore a distinctly thuggish look.

Or maybe that was just nerves, Olivia thought, staring at the men across from her. Fletcher and Garrett made for an oddly well-matched pair, both tall, thin and gray, like two graveyard trees looming up over the horizon. The thought made her suppress a hysterical giggle. It had been a long time since she'd been on this side of the interrogation table. And this was an interrogation, whatever the detectives pretended. They'd shown her to a small side room meant for witnesses, not suspects, the chairs padded and plaid, no sign of one way glass or thick metal doors. They spoke with her politely, their voices soft and compassionate.

But she'd done a thousand investigations by now, and there was always a certain feel to interrogations, some sense of tension or concentration that followed any perceived scent of guilt like a hungry dog at the scent of meat. That feeling was here now, heavy in the air as the detectives' eyes fixed on her every movement.

Which was standard. One of the first rules of homicide investigations was that the person who discovered the body was the first suspect, along with the spouse. She knew better than to take this personally. But she couldn't shake the feeling of dread. Nothing with Lewis ever went the way she expected. And she wondered what unpleasant surprises would be laying in wait.

"I'd like to go over what happened tonight one more time," Lieutenant Garrett was saying, and her eyes flicked to his. "Just to make sure we have things down."

She suppressed a sigh of impatience. "I left work around seven. Detective Rollins had left maybe an hour before. I ran a couple errands and then I got home around eight. When I came in, I saw her on the floor. She was already dead. I wasn't expecting her at my place, and I don't know how she got in. I don't know what else you expect me to remember."

Fletcher cut in smoothly. "Did you see anyone? Notice anything out of the ordinary?"

"No. Well, when I was at my door, it felt like I was being watched."

The words sounded lame as soon as they came out of her mouth. Garrett scribbled something down, his expression unreadable.

"So what time -"

"Look," she interrupted. "There's no point in asking me again. I already told you everything I remember. If you want to get a timeline, there's a camera in the lobby. There's no other way into the building. It'll show you when I came in as well as Rollins, and probably whoever killed her as well."

"We saw the camera coming in," Fletcher said. "We talked to the management and unfortunately that camera's been broken since before you moved in." He gave her a dry smile. "Typical, huh? But it does mean we'll have to do this the old fashioned way."

Olivia looked at the ground. Of course it was broken. She couldn't even blame bad luck this time. She'd looked specifically for security features while apartment hunting. It was her own fault for not doing her due diligence in checking their claims.

"So who do you think would have done this?" This was Garrett again, who was leaning back in her chair, watching her steadily. "Anyone have access to your apartment?"

"Just me and my boyfriend," she said evenly. "But I know who did it. William Lewis."

Garrett's expression didn't so much as flicker. "William Lewis?"

"Yes. He's gotten into my apartment before -"

"Your previous apartment."

"Yes. And Rollins was his initial arresting officer. It makes sense he would - " Her throat closed with a sudden prickle of tears. She could have prevented this, she thought again. She could have killed Lewis when she had the chance. And it was Amanda who had paid for her inaction, not her. Not yet, anyway.

Fletcher was shaking his head. "How would he have gotten into your apartment? Again?"

"I don't know."

"See, I just think it may be worth looking at other suspects first. William Lewis was my first thought as well, and I took the liberty of reading up on his reports before I came down. Detective Rollins herself says right here in her report that he doesn't plan, just works off of instinct. Now, it seems to me that breaking out of jail, killing an NYPD detective in another detective's home at just the right time would take more than a bit of planning. Don't you think the same?"

"We underestimated him back then," she said through numb lips. "We didn't really know what he was capable of."

"There's another problem with this Lewis theory," he added, pacing near the wall. "Preliminary examination came back a few minutes ago. Detective Rollins wasn't raped."

She blinked, a mixture of relief and confusion prickling through her skin. "She..."

"No signs of sexual assault. No signs of restraints. Not even any defensive wounds. She died from a single blow to the head, very probably from the lamp on the ground. So what do you make of that? It doesn't seem to fit his M.O."

_Neither did what happened to me,_ she thought, but didn't say it.

"I don't know," she said after a moment. "I really have no idea."

Garrett leaned forward. "Now, off the record, I've heard Rollins has been having some personal problems lately. Gambling, family issues. Any truth to that?"

"We all come with baggage. She's done her best to keep them from interfering with the job."

"Anything that could have been a motive for murder?"

"I don't know," she said again.

"I've also heard through the grapevine that she's gotten in some screaming fights with some other detectives recently. Yourself included. Is it possible that any of those might be relevant to this investigation?"

"We've all been under pressure recently. Sometimes people just need to blow off steam. They weren't big issues."

"You did a rather scathing write up of her after one of her undercover assignments recently. Said she'd be fired after one more strike."

"And she's walked the straight and narrow since then," Olivia said firmly.

"I'm sure she has," Garret said softly. "So there's no reason she might have come by your apartment after work for anything? To explain her recent behavior, to ask for just one more chance? No discussion that could have gotten just a little out of control?"

"No. I know what you're implying and you're way off base. I didn't do this. Neither did anyone on my team."

"It's just a little odd, isn't it?" Garrett mused. "You find her dead, inside your locked apartment. The only guy who's known to have a serious grudge against the both of you hasn't been seen in months, and the crime's not quite his style. Because from your reports, I got the impression the guy was a sadist, first and foremost. Why would he just kill her and leave her in your apartment?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "Lewis is unpredictable. Maybe it's a message."

To her right, Detective Fletcher's eyebrows shot up. "What kind of message?"

_A warning to me_, she almost said, before stopping herself. _It's always about you, isn't it?_ part of her brain sneered. _Rollins is dead on a slab somewhere and it's still somehow about you. Your arrogance is incredible._

There was a very long silence as Olivia struggled to find an answer.

"I really don't know," she said finally. "I wish I did. I don't understand this any more than you. I don't know what you expect me to say. I didn't do this."

Garrett stood up, all courtesy. "Of course not. This is just routine questioning, that's all. You understand how it is. But we've kept you too long already. You must be exhausted, and I imagine you're still processing what happened. We'll wrap this up for now, and maybe we'll get a chance to talk again when we get a clearer picture of things."

Olivia nodded wearily and stood up as well. She shook their proffered hands and then turned towards the door without further comment.

But halfway through their squad room, she glanced back to find their eyes still on her, watching her with pointed looks of doubt.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

Nick Amaro went to his first funeral at age of nine.

The unfortunate guest of honor had been an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Ruiz, who had dropped dead of a stroke while pushing a cart down a supermarket aisle. He hadn't been close with her, but he still remembered the sense of creeping incredulity he'd felt when his mother had told him, disbelief that someone who had lived and breathed and been in his life could simply disappear from the world without warning.

He'd found her services to be an obscenity, a sentiment he later extended to most funerals. Mrs. Ruiz had been a crass old woman, quick to scream at you if you played too close to her door, but who also made unmatchable desserts, who would grin wickedly as she told stories scary enough to make even the bravest boy quiver with terror

Her eulogies reduced her to a beaming angel, a benign nonentity smiling down from above that bore only a superficial resemblance to the real person. It seemed in its way the final erasure, the eradication of the memory of who she had been in favor of who the world had wanted her to be.

Listening to the speakers at Rollins's funeral, he wondered if he was finally old enough that his attitude about them had softened. The woman they'd spoken of in the eulogies had sounded like something of a stranger, but maybe he was the one who hadn't understood her. Maybe even after three years of working together he simply hadn't known her as well he thought. He'd never known the headstrong daughter, the protective sister, or even the loyal friend. After all, he and Rollins had been many things to each other, but never friends.

They'd spent more time at each other's throats than they'd spent really getting along, but there had been other things too – odd glances from across the squad room, pointed undercurrents to their fights. Furtive nights at her apartment after a difficult case where she'd look at him not with affection or even desire but a helpless sort need, the way she might look at a deck of cards or a stack of chips. Like her time with him was part of another vice she couldn't purge. He'd expected things to go spiraling into public disaster sooner or later, but he hadn't expected this. For the end to come with such brutal abruptness, the magnitude of her loss overshadowed by the questions that swirled around her death. Everything about it was wrong.

The funeral from the city was finally over, all the high drama and scarcely concealed political posturing finally done. There still remained a smaller graveside service, for those who had actually known her. But something about this was wrong too, he thought, walking past the rows of headstones. There were too many people for this time of day scattered about the headstones, ostensibly paying respects to their own loved ones but who were keeping too close of an eye on the straggling groups of mourners.

Amaro frowned and hurried forward.

A small crowd had already gathered around the open gravesite, but he spotted Olivia immediately. She had long mastered the art of standing alone in a crowd, of holding herself just a little bit apart, her features distant and unreadable, like a figure of glass and steel. She was keeping a weather eye on the interlopers at the gravesites as well, though she didn't seem worried. Amaro worked his way to her side.

"Are those men watching us out there our guys or someone else's?" he muttered.

Olivia didn't look at him, not taking her eyes off the men in the distance. Up close she looked tired and far less unapproachable, the ever-present hint of strain in her face since Lewis escaped more prominent than ever.

"They're from Homicide," she said. "They're keeping an eye on the area to see if someone they don't expect decides to show up."

"Doesn't sound like a thing Lewis would do."

She shook her head. "Better to cover all bases I guess." She finally glanced at him. "And they're not so sure it was Lewis."

Amaro's brow furrowed. "Then wh –"

The crowd began to quiet as Rollins's mother stepped up to the podium, and Amaro shut his mouth. He put on a stoic face as he listened to the new speeches, shorter, but almost exorbitant in their expressions of grief. And he found his eyes wandering across the lawn, to rest on the men who watched them with perhaps a little less subtlety than they intended. He wondered why he found their presence to be the opposite of reassuring.

Metaphysical questions aside, as a detective, he knew death was rarely the end. More often it was the beginning to a winding and difficult path that only lead to closure in the best case scenario. And buried beneath the layers of grief, he couldn't shake the sense that this was merely the start to something even more terrible, like the first rumblings before an earthquake.

The mood of the crowd shifted again, and Amaro blinked, coming to the present. The service was over. People were talking in low voices, moving away or paying their last respects. Fin and Olivia were speaking to Amanda's family, but he couldn't bring himself to join them. He turned on his heel, heading towards his car. He'd catch trouble from Olivia later for just leaving like this, but right now he couldn't help it.

"I'm not good with funerals," he muttered aloud. Even to himself it sounded weak. He lowered his head and walked faster.

He was the first of the mourners to reach the parking lot, but someone was already there. At first Amaro thought he was another badly concealed cop, but a closer look told him otherwise. The man looked to be in his mid-forties, with sharp, watchful eyes, wearing the uniform of the seedy tabloid journalist – faded khakis with an oversize camera. Amaro began to walk faster, angling himself towards the edge of the parking lot, but the man had already seen him. He hurried over, his eyes bright with interest.

"Hey, I recognize you. You work at SVU. You worked with that cop that died, right?"

"Nope," Amaro said, without breaking his pace.

"Anything you want to say about what went down? Do you feel the NYPD takes the safety of its officers seriously enough?"

"No comment," he said, walking even faster.

"Anything you want to say about the victim? What was it like working with her?"

Amaro whirled on him. "Her name was Amanda Rollins. And this is a funeral. Have a little goddamn respect."

"This _is_ respect," the reporter said blithely. "I'm out here in the parking lot, aren't I?

He resisted the sudden urge to throttle the man. "You're kidding me."

"Hey man, I just really want to know if you guys have gotten any closer to cracking the case. Just give me a hint and I'll leave you alone."

"No comment. And you're asking the wrong guy anyway. I'm not involved with the investigation."

"It's unusual for the NYPD to be so quiet about something like this."

"I said, no comment."

"I've got a source telling me their prime suspect is another cop."

"That's ridiculous," Amaro snapped, forgetting himself. "Who said that?"

"A source, like I said. Feel like giving me a comment now?"

"Nice try," he said, shaking his head. "Keep your shitty source. The detectives on the case are going to release a statement when they're ready."

There was a moment of silence as they stared each other down. The reporter blinked slowly.

"Of course," he said, "there are some other theories floating around too. It's hard not to notice Detective Rollins was the second detective working in SVU who's been targeted by someone in the last year."

Amaro gave him a sarcastic smile. "You seem like a smart guy. It's too bad you had to waste it on being a parasite."

The man shrugged, unashamed. "You play the game or you get stepped all over by someone who does. If you haven't learned that already, you will soon. Because I've been working this beat longer than you've have, officer, and I'll tell you, there's blood in the water on this case. Anyone can smell it. And I think everyone's just wondering what kind of shark you're going to get."

Amaro took a tiny step forward, bracing his shoulders for a fight. "Get lost," he said quietly. "If you're still here when her family comes over, I'm going to make your life very hard."

The man opened his mouth as though to object, but he apparently changed his mind, scurrying away without looking back. Amaro watched him go, a rush of foreboding rising in his wake.


	4. Chapter 4

4.

Back in the day, one of John Munch's main mantras had been that just because you were paranoid didn't mean that someone wasn't after you. But the problem with that, Olivia mused wearily, was that it made it impossible to tell when your fears were founded. In the months since Lewis had escaped from prison, she'd felt the prickling feeling of being watched by unknown eyes more than a dozen times, and it seemed likely now that some of those had been valid. But she'd had that feeling before too, when she knew Lewis was safely in prison, at times when she knew for sure she was alone. It was paranoia, plain and simple. What could you do when you knew your instincts were letting you down?

She rarely slept anymore, which was nothing new, she supposed. Lewis had violated her home again, and it felt as though the solid walls were made of paper, the door nothing but the stretched jaws of a snake.

She knew the sane thing to do would be to pack up and go, but it simply wasn't feasible to move right now. The lease wouldn't expire for months, and the landlord refused to budge (which she couldn't resent - who would choose to rent a place where someone had been murdered?). And even if she did, it wouldn't matter. Lewis would only find her again, over and over until things came to an end.

There had been two more interviews with Fletcher and Garrett in the weeks since Rollins had been murdered. Both had been polite and inoffensive – still routine, they insisted, but they were reading her rights beforehand now. She was pretty sure the smart decision would be to stop talking and get a lawyer, but she wanted the case to be solved far more than they did. Anything that held up the case was out. And they wouldn't find anything by investigating her. She simply hadn't done anything.

She was heading down the hall after one of these interviews when she made fleeting eye contact with a man passing the other direction, short and baby faced with a perpetually harried look. He gave a start when he saw her, lowering his head, and walking faster. It wasn't until she was alone in her office again that she remembered who he was. Jose Silva. Lewis's old roommate. He'd testified briefly at the trial, never once meeting her eyes, talking about Lewis's temper, his unpredictability.

His presence here now had to be a coincidence. Right?

She headed out three hours later, and she knew with certainty this time that she was being followed. She could feel the weight of unseen eyes, kept catching glimpses of what might have been the same dark coat. Halfway to her apartment, she stopped dead in the middle of the street and whirled around, scanning the crowd for any hint of a familiar face. Nothing stood out.

Even so, she didn't head home, turning impulsively and heading back to the subway. She'd had enough of waiting passively for Lewis to make the next move. She'd make a trip to Bushwick, to where Jose Silva was living now. They could have a little chat. Find out what he'd been doing at the precinct. After all, he'd helped Lewis before. He could be doing it again. She needed to know if she was jumping at shadows.

Silva's apartment was in a brown-bricked building, the shabbiest in the solidly middle class neighborhood. She was buzzed in without issue, no one looked twice at her as she headed up the stairs. She knocked on the apartment door and Silva himself answered, blanching when he saw her.

"Oh shit," he blurted, taking a step back.

"Oh shit is right," she said dryly. "Mind if we have a chat?"

Without waiting for an answer, she pushed past him inside. It was very much a bachelor's apartment, dirty dishes in the sink, food stains on the couch. The scatter of jackets and shoes around the living room bespoke of other residents, but no one popped their head out to check the commotion.

"I see you moved out of that halfway house since the trial," she said, her voice deceptively casual as she checked the living room closely, looking for signs of anything amiss. "How's that working out for you?"

"I – what –"

"Heard anything from William Lewis lately?" She said it with an equally casual tone, and through the reflection on the window, she saw him blink and flinch.

"N-no –"

"Are you sure? No sign of him at all? No messages or requests for any favors?"

"Look, this is crazy," Silva said, starting to push past her. "You need to get out of here."

His hand hit her shoulder and she reacted on pure reflex, drawing her gun and backing him into the wall. Silva's eyes went wide and he began babbling with panic.

"I haven't seen him I swear. Shit, did you see the money they were offering if you turned him in? Half the guys I know would sell out their own grandmas for that kind of cash. Nobody's going to hide him. Least of all me, I swear."

"You did it before."

"Yeah, because I didn't know what he was up to. Thought he was just going to run errands or something stupid like that. Didn't want to piss him off. I mean, you know what it's like when he gets angry." He swallowed, as if realizing what he'd said. "I mean –"

"What were you doing at the police station today?"

"My cousin got busted for possession. I went to bail him out. I figured I owed my aunt after what happened with her car. They wouldn't give it back for months, you know."

"I know," she said between gritted teeth. "I spent about six hours locked in the trunk, so you'll excuse me if I'm not exactly brimming with sympathy right now."

He didn't reply, but stared at the gun, almost cross-eyed. She stepped back, holstering it.

"If he does contact you, I'm sure you know what to do," she said turning towards the door.

Halfway down the steps, she heard his voice again. "You can't fucking treat people this way," he called after her, and she could hear the furious tears in his voice. "First your guys beat on me because Lewis took my car, and now you come to my place and hold a fucking gun to my head for no reason? You can't do this. Do you still tell yourself you're the fucking good guys?"

She started to snarl something back – then froze. He was right. She had nothing whatsoever to connect him to Lewis, and even if she did, she had no right to threaten him like this. She'd done it out of fear and desperation, but that didn't make it any better. If he made a complaint against her, he'd have a solid case, and even if he didn't, it had still been wrong.

She turned back towards the apartment, meaning to apologize or explain, but the door slammed shut, footsteps retreating inside. After a moment she continued down the stairs, unable to bring herself to knock again. The lobby was empty, and she leaned against the wall, putting her head in her hands.

Everything about this was a mistake. It had been impetuous and reckless and every bit as out of control as the worst of Lieutenant Garrett's expectations. She'd barged into an innocent man's home and pointed a gun at his head. She wouldn't have done it a year ago. She wouldn't have dreamed it.

She hadn't seen Lewis for months now, but somehow he was making her into the monster she'd always promised herself she'd never be.

* * *

Lieutenant Garrett sat in a car across the street from Olivia Benson's apartment, a cup of black coffee in his hands. He'd been keeping tabs on her of late, mostly off the books. His squad knew about his suspicions, but it was never a good idea to outright accuse a cop of anything without solid proof. For anyone else, finding the body of their associate dead in their apartment, no alibi, and a semi-decent motive would mean they were well along the road to bringing charges. She was guilty. He felt it in his bones. But you had to be careful when you were dealing with other cops. Not only were they far better at covering their tracks than the average criminal, making an accusation that didn't pan out (and even one that did) would get you weeks of dirty looks and worse around the precinct.

So he kept watch on her.

He wasn't sure what he was waiting for. Everything about the Rollins case screamed of a crime of passion, an argument that spiraled into murder. He didn't exactly expect to walk in on her bludgeoning a neighbor. But to lose control in this kind of way was an indication of someone under heavy pressure, whose life was in disarray. He could understand and even sympathize why that might be, in Benson's case. But that didn't justify murder. He'd find what else she was up to, and he'd use it as a wedge to winnow a confession.

Despite everything he found himself dozing off. Stakeouts were work for younger men, who still had a high tolerance for the long hours and tedium. He could admit, if only to himself, that he wasn't quite at his prime anymore, vagaries of age finally starting to outweigh the advantages of experience. Benson had even given him the slip earlier in the day, something that had never happened under his watch before. And now she was late and he knew in his heart that he'd missed something critical. Which was all the reason to do better now.

There was a knock on his window and he jumped, looking up abruptly.

The man outside was tall, silhouetted against the streetlight. It was hard to make out his features. He knocked on the window again, Garrett rolled it down, resting one hand on his gun.

The man's voice was friendly, if a little on edge. "Hey, uh, you're in my parking spot. I know people think it's like a free for all here or something, but I actually paid extra for this place."

Garret grunted, relaxing a little. "Sorry. You're going to have to find somewhere else today."

He could tell the man was pissed, but trying to hide it. "Oh yeah? Why is that?"

"Police business." He flashed his badge. "Like I said, find somewhere else to park tonight."

Usually the sight of the badge was enough to send people scurrying, but apparently not tonight. The man hesitated, then stood up straighter.

"Look, police or not, you can't just take people's spots. I know my rights."

Garret growled under his breath, looking back at the doors to Benson's apartment. With his luck, he would have missed her going in already. "Look. Sir. This is part of an active murder investigation, and the NYPD would appreciate your cooperation. Why don't you find somewhere else to park just for one night and I'll make sure to be somewhere else in the future?"

There was another moment of hesitation. "Can I see your badge again?"

With a sigh of annoyance, he reached for the badge at his waist, fumbling it slightly in the darkness.

"There," he said, looking up at the main again. "Feel free –"

Time seemed to slow. He saw the rounded muzzle of a gun hovering at eye level as the other man held it almost negligently, a grin on his face. He was starting to reach forward to grab it, to push it away from his head when there was a sudden bright flash.

And then nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Olivia reached home a little after eleven. The apartment was still empty, though she'd given up on being surprised about that anymore. Cassidy had always kept strange hours – a product of all his time in deep undercover, perhaps. Today she didn't mind. She wasn't up for conversation right now.

She threw her purse on the table then headed towards the bedroom. She lay down on the bed with a sigh, meaning to close her eyes for five minutes before getting up and finishing her evening's work. She fell asleep instead and dreamed of fleeing, of running down a long corridor lined by cement and boxes, by wooden slats and steel frames. She ran with mindless fear, nearly flying across the floor, even as she knew it wouldn't be enough. When she came upon a locked door she met it with resignation, beating her fists against it hopelessly but it was too late. Lewis's hands wrapped around her shoulders, his breath against her neck, and she sat bolt upright on her bed, tangled in her sheets.

Lewis wasn't there. The pounding noise continued, coming from her apartment door. She looked around rather wildly. Brian was beside her, having returned at some point during the night. He stirred but settled back down– sometimes she thought the man could sleep through anything. She thought about shaking him awake, but decided against it, though she picked up her gun. Lewis wouldn't be so bold as to simply knock in her door, would he?

She took a breath to calm herself, then crossed to the door on silent feet, looking through the peephole. Detective Fletcher and two uniformed officers waited outside the door, their expressions grim.

Her first panicked thought was that Silva had filed a complaint against her, had maybe gone to the media, and now they would hauling her in to deal with the consequences. But no, that was absurd. Nothing she'd done would be worth a nighttime visit, and Fletcher was a member of Homicide, not IAB. This was about Rollins again.

She opened the door. "Detective," she said, nodding to Fletcher. "How can I help you?"

"Sergeant," he said, inclining his head coldly. "We're going to need you to come with us."

So she was the prime suspect now, though she couldn't think why. Had someone trumped up some evidence against her, or were they so desperate for suspects that they were going after her again?

"Am I under arrest?"

"I hope we don't have to go that route. Right now I'm hoping you'll go with us down to the precinct for a friendly chat."

Something was wrong. She could tell by the brittle look in his eyes. He was much too upset to be here over the weeks old case of a woman he didn't even know.

"What-?" she began, but then Cassidy's voice came from the bedroom.

"Liv? What's going on?"

"It's fine," she called back, not taking her eyes from Fletcher.

"Well, Sergeant? What's it going to be? You can come willingly or you can come in handcuffs. Either way, we're going to have a talk."

"There's no need for threats," she said coolly. "I'd be happy to clear up whatever misunderstandings you might have."

Fletcher said nothing, but stepped aside from the doorway, gesturing for her to go first. She breezed past him with all the disdain she could manage, heading towards the elevator without looking to see if they'd followed.

"Where's Lieutenant Garrett, anyway?" she added, glancing back. "Did I get demoted, that you're the one threatening me now instead of him?"

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Fletcher's eyes went flat, one fist clenching mechanically.

"Dave Garrett is dead," he said softly. "But you knew that already, didn't you, Sergeant?"

She felt the blood drain from her face as the two uniformed cops fell in behind her, blocking off the hall like the closing of a prison door.

* * *

They left her sitting alone in the interrogation room for longer this time – an hour, maybe. She sat unmoving in the hard metal seat, listening for any hint of voices behind the one way glass, her stomach twisted with anxiety. The smart thing to do now, she knew, would be to ask for a lawyer and refuse to speak. This was no routine interview or fishing expedition, she was the number one suspect, maybe the only suspect. Any rookie detective could tell her that going through this interrogation was a foolish thing to do. But the fact remained that two cops had died now, and while maybe it was her right to not cooperate, the blowback she'd face for apparently stonewalling the investigation could be nightmarish.

And the fact remained that she simply hadn't done anything. They had nothing to link her to the crime at all – that's why they needed a confession. Then again, Lewis had been inside her apartment. He could easily have taken something, planted evidence at this new crime scene. She wouldn't put it past him. She was at his mercy again, he could destroy her life without her ever setting eyes on him. But somehow she didn't think he'd had. Jail time wasn't what he wanted for her.

The door to the interrogation burst open and Fletcher finally strode in. He was alone this time, his face absolutely expressionless.

"You understand your rights?" he said, sitting across from her.

"I understand."

"Do you wish to waive them and speak with me now?"

"Yes," she said again, even as her mind screamed that it was stupid. The time for cooperation was over, and the time for self-preservation had begun. An ugly fact of life was that innocence was no defense against an investigator who thought he already knew the answers, and she didn't like the hard set of Fletcher's shoulders.

"Where were you tonight?" he said, after a long pause

"At home."

"All night?"

"No. I got dinner. Ran some errands."

"What time did you get home?"

"I don't know. Late. Look, can you tell me what this is about? I don't understand why you'd think I had anything to do with Lieutenant Garett's death. I haven't seen him since you interviewed me yesterday."

Fletcher stood up abruptly, his chair scraping across the floor. "He was shot," he said, and she could hear the scarcely controlled grief in his voice. "He was shot in his car right across from your apartment building. Now what do you make of that, Sergeant?"

She felt a flash of sympathy for his obvious pain, but it was dwarfed by a wave of anger. "What was he doing in front of my apartment at night?"

"What do you think?"

She glared at him. "You guys were watching me."

"And you knew we were. The Lieutenant said you shook him off deliberately a few times."

"I didn't know it was him."

"How many people do you think you have watching you at once, Sergeant?" He paused and then sneered. "William Lewis again, I suppose."

"Yes," she said, trying for calm. "I don't know why you won't consider –"

"And what exactly did Lewis have against Garrett? Your theory almost made sense with the Rollins case. But I don't think any of us ever even saw the guy in person."

"I don't know. Lewis kills people who are in his way sometimes. Or even just for kicks. And I don't know if it's him. It could be a coincidence. I can't be the only one Garrett was investigating."

"Awful lot of coincidences happening around you recently, don't you think?" Fletcher said, deeply sarcastic.

"What happened to Rollins wasn't a coincidence."

"Where were you tonight?"

"Why does it matter?" she snapped.

He leaned towards her, hands flat on the table, his voice rising with each word. "It matters because Lieutenant Garrett died five hundred feet from your door. He was shot facing his killer, window down, like it was someone he knew. Neighbors said they heard what might have been a gunshot sometime after 10:30 that night. And you know what else? Your landlord got his act together after the last death of an NYPD detective in his building and fixed the camera in the lobby. We know you got home at 11:06 that night, and our own cameras show you leaving the precinct at 6:20. There aren't many errands that take five hours on a weekday night, so for your own sake, I'll ask you again. _Where were you tonight?_"

The last few words came out almost a scream, and Olivia refused to flinch. She opened her mouth to tell him about Jose Silva – and hesitated. Quite apart from the guilt over how she'd acted, telling Fletcher about this incident would only confirm his suspicions that she'd been acting out of control. It would give him proof of wrongdoing to hold over her head, and worst of all, it wouldn't even prove her innocence. Timelines were always murky enough for some wiggle room. She could easily have visited Silva and killed Garrett as well. She hadn't, but she could have. She was trapped again and this time it was one of her own making.

The silence stretched on too long. She saw his expression flicker and she knew that he'd tried and convicted her in his mind in that moment. Nothing she said would convince him otherwise now.

"I don't think this is going anywhere," she said softly. "I'd like a lawyer."

Fletcher gave her a look of disgust, turning away. "You don't need one. You're free to go. We've got nothing to hold you."

_Nat yet, anyway_, was the heavy implication.

She stood up wordlessly and headed towards the exit, Fletcher one step behind her. Fin and Amaro were waiting outside the door, their faces set.

"You've got no cause to treat her like this," Fin said flatly. "She's a decorated –"

"Save it," Fletcher said, pushing past him. "That blue wall shit only goes so far. Lewis, Rollins, Garrett – haven't you noticed a few too many people on her bad side have ended up gone?"

"Rollins wasn't on her bad side," Fin said. "You're only seeing what you want to see."

"Talk about projection. You'd never hear a bad word about her, while she's out here running mysterious errands at night, ones that conveniently have nothing to back them up –"

"She does have an alibi," Amaro said abruptly. "She was at my place last night."

Everyone turned to look at him. Olivia tried to keep the dismay off her face. _You shouldn't lie, Nick. It only makes things worse._

Fletcher turned to her slowly. "Is that true?"

She struggled with herself for a moment before replying. "Yes," she said reluctantly. "We were working on a case."

"What case?"

"Who else?" Nick said. His face betrayed no hint of emotion "William Lewis. She left maybe a little after ten."

From the disappointed expression on Fletcher's face, it was clear this meshed with what they'd found so far. "Now why wouldn't you just tell us that, Sergeant? Why all the stonewalling?"

"Because you already decided I'm guilty," Olivia said quietly. "I'm not going to make it easier for you to set me up."

Fletcher sneered and then stalked off without looking back.

In a daze, Olivia began heading towards the exit. Nick fell into step beside her, Fin flanking the rear.

"They're searching your place," Amaro murmured as they walked down the hall. "Cassidy is there making sure they stay within the letter of the warrant."

"Let them look," she said. "They won't find anything. But Nick, you shouldn't have -"

He cut her off. "Forget it. They're gunning for you either way. Maybe this'll at least make them think about the other possibilities.

She shook her head. Amaro didn't understand – not the way she did. He didn't understand the way lies had a way of twisting back on you, strangling at you as they grew at a pace of their own making. But there was no way to change what was said, to change what was done. She would deal with this as well, take things as they came.

"I hope so," she said, and she walked out the door without looking back.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

* * *

Amaro came to work early the day of Lieutenant Garrett's funeral, walking in the doors a little past the break of dawn. The last week or so had been sufficiently chaotic that the pile of unfinished paperwork on his desk had risen to catastrophic levels, bad enough that he couldn't simply tell himself he'd do it the next day. He'd start now and get as much done as he could before anyone else came in, then polish things off after the funeral. If a new case came in today, someone else would have to take it, simple as that.

But when he reached SVU's squad room, he found that the lights were already on, voices coming from inside. He let out an internal sigh. No matter how early he came in it was rare to beat Olivia to the precinct, and rarer still to be there longer. He wondered if she'd even slept since Rollins had died.

He admired Olivia more than just about anyone he'd ever met, but that didn't change the fact that he deeply feared becoming her. He was terrified at the thought that the job might someday consume his life the way it had hers, that he'd wake up one day to find his family and friends were strangers and all that was left was the grind of the next case, and the next, and the next.

He reached the doorway and paused. There was an unfamiliar voice coming from inside, weedy, officious, and subtly agitated. Amaro leaned in closer, straining his ears.

"-just not a good idea under present circumstances," the voice was saying. "I'm sure you understand."

Olivia's reply sounded tired and strained, barely audible even in the early morning silence. "I didn't do anything to him. I didn't even know he was out there."

"I'm sure that true, but his widow has personally requested you not attend, and we have to honor her wishes. We'll pass along your condolences and I'm sure whatever… misunderstandings there are right now will be worked out soon. Until then, it's important to be sensitive."

There was a long pause. Then Olivia's voice, sounding more tired than ever.

"Understood."

"Good."

Footsteps sounded and Amaro darted from the doorway as quickly and quietly as he could. Once he'd reached the middle of the hall, he began walking casually away as if he'd been passing by on other business. He caught a glimpse of the other man as he blew past him, walking fast. He was the deputy inspector, the man Cragen would have reported to back in the day. The man's gaze slid past him without recognition, his expression grim.

Amaro made an unnecessary trip to the restroom, calming his mind and giving both him and Olivia time to pretend he hadn't overheard the conversation. When he returned to the squad room, the door to Olivia's office was closed, the shades drawn. He eased into his desk and reached for the first pile of papers, prudently deciding that she wouldn't be in the mood for a conversation.

Over an hour later he felt the beginnings of a headache and he leaned back in his seat, taking a break to skim through his email. Buried amidst the departmental memos was a subject line in all caps.

"NYPD SERGEANT SUSPECTED IN SLAYINGS WAS ACCUSED OF PREVIOUS CRIMES"

Ignoring the ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach, he opened the email. The message turned out to contain nothing but a link to an article by the same title in one of the seedier tabloids. Most of it was a rehash of the investigation into Rollins' and Garrett's murders, but a part near the end caught his eye.

"Bronwyn Freed, the jury forewoman in the trial for Sergeant Benson's alleged abduction has her doubts.

"'It was pretty obvious she was lying about a lot of what happened between her and William Lewis,' she said, speaking in an exclusive interview. 'He claimed she beat him half to death when he was handcuffed and unconscious, and his story made a lot more sense than hers. I wouldn't be surprised if she made the whole kidnapping thing up to get out of trouble. I voted against my conscience to convict him and I regret it now. They said he escaped, but I doubt it. Prisoners can't just disappear like that. She probably had someone on the inside get rid of him so he couldn't contradict her story. Too many people who crossed her have disappeared now, and I'm not the only one putting the dots together. The police need to stop her before it's too late.'"

Amaro closed the article, hands shaking in rage. He tried to see who sent it, but the email address was gibberish, doubtlessly made purely for this purpose. He glanced at the closed blinds of Olivia's office, wondering if she'd seen the article as well. Probably yes. He wouldn't be surprised if it had been sent to everyone in the precinct.

He stood up, striding towards the office and knocking on the door before he could stop himself. There was a long pause.

"Come in," she said finally. He opened the door.

Her eyes were a little red when he entered, but if she'd been crying, her voice gave no sign when she spoke.

"What do you need?"

He'd already opened his mouth to reply when he realized the last thing she'd want right now would be commiseration. He cleared his throat.

"I uh, finished a couple of my reports," he said lamely. "They still need your signature."

She nodded wearily. "Bring them over. Think you're going to finish that pile today?"

"Uh-"

"If you need help, I can fill a couple things out for you."

He shook his head. "It's fine."

"No, really." She smiled without humor. "I'll be holding the fort today during Lieutenant Garrett's funeral so I'll probably have the time."

He had no idea what to say to that so he only nodded. She was wearing the brittle look she'd had in the weeks following her abduction by Lewis, the tightly controlled features of someone teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. It had faded in the months since but it was back, worse than ever.

"Everything's going to work out, you know," he said impulsively. "We're going to get Lewis, and Homicide and the brass are going to be falling all over themselves to make it up to you."

Her smile was better this time, but still not quite genuine. "Sure."

He'd started to turn away, when her voice stopped him. "I never thought it'd be like this."

"What?"

She wasn't looking at him, staring somewhere far away. "I didn't think it'd end like this. My mom hated the idea of me becoming a cop, you know. Told me every day before I enrolled in the academy that I'd get myself killed, that I'd catch a bullet in an alley or something. She said it enough that I pretty much believed it. Basically came to terms with it. I'd take the wrong case someday, piss off the wrong person and I'd end up bleeding out on the street somewhere. Quick and easy, almost." Her mouth twisted bitterly. "Didn't think I'd have to watch everything I ever cared about fall apart first."

He didn't like the empty look in her eyes. "We're going to get him," he repeated firmly.

She shrugged and looked down. "You should get back to work. The funeral is in two hours."

He hesitated, then turned and left. Two hours seemed to drag on interminably. He could see cops beginning to head out in little clumps in the hallway but he didn't want to arrive early, wanting to minimize the opportunities for the others to give him dirty looks.

Finally he headed downstairs to get his car, walking slowly, his thoughts still on the case. So he almost didn't notice a figure stepping out of the shadows of the garage, cutting him off.

"Hey," it said.

Amaro flinched and stumbled back, hands reaching for his gun, before realizing it was only Cassidy.

"Christ," he muttered, his heart pounding. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Needed to talk to you about something," Cassidy said.

Amaro rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah? Shoot me an email. We're about to be late for a funeral and we're sure as hell not carpooling."

Cassidy didn't move. "It's important."

"What do you want, then?"

"On the night Garret was killed, what was Olivia doing at your house in middle of the night?"

Whatever Amaro had expected, it hadn't been that. "What?"

Cassidy was looking at him steadily. "I think I have the right to know."

"How the hell did you even find out about that?"

"It's all over the stationhouse. Planning on answering me?"

Homicide had leaked the information, Amaro thought furiously, which was against about a dozen different rules, but of course they'd deny it if confronted and there was no way to prove it.

But that wasn't the issue now. For a moment, he was tempted to walk away without answering. If Olivia and Cassidy happened to break up over this, as far as Amaro was concerned, that would be the best thing to happen to her in months. But the end of a months long relationship right now would be just one more turd on the massive pile of shit she'd been dealt recently, and he couldn't do that to her.

He moved towards Cassidy, deliberately stepping into his personal space. "First off," he snapped under his breath, "she wasn't even at my place, okay? I said it to get Homicide off her back. Otherwise they were going to spend the next couple months harassing her and you know she didn't do anything. Secondly, if she _had_ come over, nothing would have happened anyway. I know this'll be hard for you to understand, Cassidy, but not everyone feels like they have to try and sleep with everyone they see. So get off it."

"That's rich, coming from you," Cassidy muttered, and Amaro stared him down, taking another half step forward.

"Want to run that by me again?"

Cassidy seemed to back down, but only a little. "It's just that it looks weird, doesn't it? First she has you stay at the apartment for weeks, and after that you're telling people she was at your place in middle of the night."

Amaro stepped back. "Unbelievable. I have no idea what she sees in you."

He'd started to walk away when Cassidy's voice came again. "I know she's out of my league."

He turned around. Cassidy was standing where he'd left him, his shoulders slumped, looking oddly small against the gray of the garage. He was wearing an almost a forlorn look, his face half turned away.

"I just really wanted this to work out, you know? Back when we worked together I was crazy about her. But she was never really interested. And when we met again all these years later and neither of us had settled down, I thought it was like fate, it was like something out of a story. But with things the way they are… I don't know. I guess I'd just rather we have problems because of someone else than to think we just don't work together."

Amaro sighed, annoyance warring with some tiny niggling thread of sympathy. "Look," he said grudgingly. "It's pretty obvious you two have been on the rocks for a while. But if she didn't want to be with you, she'd leave. I don't think she's shy about that."

Cassidy let out a breath of air through his nose. "We've been 'on the rocks' since before Lewis. I'm pretty sure most of the reason she stayed was because she didn't want to be alone after that. But I don't think the way things are is enough for either of us."

"Have you talked to her about it?"

"She doesn't want to."

"Maybe try a little harder then."

The glare that Cassidy gave him could have peeled paint. "You of all people should know Olivia doesn't do a damn thing that she doesn't want to. And she doesn't want to talk."

Amaro resisted the urge to throw his hands in the air, turning towards his vehicle. "Why the hell are you coming to me with this? What do you want me to say? Maybe go home a little more or something. Work things out. Or don't. Just don't make it my problem, because as far as I'm concerned she could do way better."

He was almost to the car when Cassidy's voice came again, calling across the empty garage. "You can drop the attitude, okay? You're not the only one here who cares about her."

Nick didn't turn. "Yeah, you care about her so goddamn much that you're down here asking if she slept with me while she's being investigated for murder. You're a real Romeo all right."

To his credit, Cassidy had the sense to sound abashed. "I didn't really think she did," he muttered. "It's just that guys were giving me shit, you know? Just wanted to make sure."

"Oh yeah? Well next time you want to make sure, think about keeping it to yourself." He stepped into the car. "The last thing she needs right now is more people doubting her."

With that he drove off, leaving Cassidy standing alone in the garage.


	7. Chapter 7

7.

The weeks following Lieutenant Garrett's funeral were far and away the worst Olivia had ever had on the job. The only time that could even be compared were those first couple days after she'd returned to work after her abduction, where people had stared at her in elevators, whispering behind their hands, pity in their eyes. It had been humiliating and uncomfortable but she would have taken it in an instant over what she had now, where people turned their faces coldly when they saw her, muttered insults just loud enough for her to hear.

She tried to ignore these, to raise her head and set the hurt aside. She tried to put herself in their shoes, asking herself how she'd feel if she thought someone had murdered Cragen and gotten away with it, and then had the gall to keep showing up to work, to go on about her life like nothing happened.

It didn't help.

And she missed Cragen, now more than ever. She missed his quiet air of authority, his endless network of favors. And Elliot too, with his unwavering support and access to that old boys' club only available to second generation cops. The undeniable fact was that the people left at the precinct who were still willing and able to stand behind her now was a dwindling list, and she was increasingly isolated among people that wanted her gone.

As for herself, she'd never played politics and had always made enemies more easily than friends. So she protected herself the only way she knew how, by doing her job and doing it well. Not an 'i' went undotted, a 't' uncrossed. Witness statements were impeccable, the solve rate was actually up. Perhaps Fin and Amaro realized the severity of the situation, because they too were on their best behavior, restraining themselves admirably with even the worst perps.

Even so, things were spiraling out of control.

It had been impossible to find a replacement for Rollins. The few who applied were patently unqualified or actively hostile, sometimes both. She was often openly followed home after work (mostly by cops, she hoped), and had started getting hangup calls in middle of the night. The brass went over her papers with a fine-toothed comb, waiting for the mistake that they could use to justify letting her go. Cassidy, on the other hand, was being overly solicitous, always there when she went home, never complaining about the interrupted sleep or the harassment he must have been enduring as well.

She found she had mixed feelings about this new behavior. Part of her was grateful, overjoyed that he thought she was worth sticking around for even as all this was happening. The other part wished they could simply end this charade, so that she wouldn't have to feel guilty about ruining his life too.

Mostly though, she simply didn't have time to think about him at all, focused with a single-minded intensity on the job she refused to lose, working long into the night after everyone else had gone.

It was on one of these nights after she'd finally sent Amaro away as well (no point in screwing up his home life too, right?) that she got a call, the phone ringing loudly in the stillness of the squad room.

"Benson."

The voice on the other line was slightly familiar. "This is Detective Fletcher from Homicide. We've got a body here that we think was one of your cases. We'd like you to come down to the scene to take a look."

He gave her an address and she wrote it down automatically before pausing.

"It's a little late for a consult," she said hesitantly.

The voice on the other line was cold. "We don't get to choose when murders happen. Do your job or don't." The line went dead.

She hung up the phone slowly, heart pounding in her chest. Everything about this screamed of a setup. No department was this eager to bring in another, especially one they'd been on bad terms with for weeks. It wouldn't surprise her if she got there only to find nothing but an empty building, and maybe a bullet from the shadows.

Then again, it was well within their rights to ask her for a consult. It was her duty as a detective to provide one. If she simply didn't show, they could complain to the brass, get another mark on her record, and she was walking on thin ice already. They had to know she would log this call in her records. If she went out to this call and never came back, it would be no mystery what happened to her. No one would be that brazen. Right?

With a trembling hand, she reached out for her badge, clipping it to her hip as she stood.

_You'll die if you go,_ said a calm part of her mind. _If you walk in there, you won't walk out._

"I have to," she said aloud. Her voice cracked when she spoke, sounding small in the empty squad room. "It's my job. They can't take it from me."

She walked out the door.

The address that they gave her was to a half-completed apartment building right at the edge of their jurisdiction. The rough wooden sidings and empty windows gave it an almost skeletal look, looming ominously in the remnants of the sunset. Crime scene tape hung across the open door but no uniformed officer waited at the entrance, a bad sign in and of itself.

It occurred to her to call Fin or Amaro to come with her – as backup or maybe as a witness. But neither of them lived anywhere near here, and she'd delayed too long already. Besides, everyone would think she was losing her nerve, and maybe they wouldn't be wrong.

Squaring her shoulders, she ducked under the tape and went inside. She climbed the stairs to the second floor, walking past rough wood and insulation. When she reached the landing, she was met with the sight of three homicide detectives standing over a prone form lying in middle of a hallway, and she felt a moment of guilty, furtive relief. At least there had been some sort of crime. At least this hadn't been a story spun from air to try and lure her out alone.

The other detectives watched her as she approached, their faces grim.

"We called you more than an hour ago," one of them said.

It hadn't been an hour yet, but Olivia shrugged politely.

"Traffic," she said, her voice even. She crouched down next to the body, taking in the details. The dead woman was perhaps not quite thirty. Drug use and a hard life had coarsened her skin, deepened the lines in her face. Her blonde hair was dark at the roots, her pale blue eyes heavy-lidded, her mouth slightly open as though in surprise. She looked familiar.

"Yeah, I remember her," Olivia said wearily. "We charged her boyfriend with domestic violence. Stalking too, after she broke up with him. The case fell apart when she refused to testify. Did she OD?" Olivia nodded to the plastic baggies and needles littering the ground near the body.

Fletcher shook his head. "Nah. Her neck was broken." He nudged the body with his foot and the woman's head rolled to an impossible angle. "We think she and her killer came here to shoot up, got into an argument or something. He killed her, took off."

"I know your first suspect then," Olivia said, still staring at the body. "Chad Weber. Her boyfriend. Last I heard she got back together with him after the charges were dropped. Can't say I'm surprised things ended this way."

"I never understood that." For the first time there was no hostility in his voice. Only interest. "I don't get what makes people go back to someone they know is going to hurt them. It doesn't make sense."

She shrugged. "There are a million different reasons. They're afraid or they're lonely. They don't have the self-esteem to think that anyone else is going to care about them, or that they can take care of themselves. Or sometimes they just can't imagine anything else. If anyone really understood why people do the things they do, our jobs would be a hell of a lot easier."

"Right." The brusque tone was back. "So this Chad character. Where do you think we'd find him? Holed up with a friend, a relative? Where would he go?"

"No nearby relatives, not many friends. He probably wandered back to his apartment, too high to realize he did anything wrong. "

There was a pause. "Good," he said. "That'll make things easier."

There was something in his tone that made Olivia stiffen. She started to turn when a hard blow to the face knocked her to the ground. She fell onto her back, scrabbling for her gun. Her hands had barely closed on the metal when it was yanked from her grip. Someone kicked her in the stomach hard enough to wind her and tears blurred her vision.

She raised her head to see Fletcher staring down at her, his eyes hard.

"That was for Lieutenant Garrett."

Wincing, she pushed herself to her knees, not quite daring to stand just in case they took offense and knocked her back down.

"I didn't kill him," she said, staring him in the eye. "I swear I didn't."

"You bitch," he said almost wonderingly. "Even after all this you still won't admit it. Everyone knows you murdered him. Him and your own goddamn detective. Why don't you just confess? Clear your conscience."

Her voice was even. "I didn't kill either of them. You know I didn't. And if you had a single shred of evidence that I did, we wouldn't be here right now."

He ignored her. He was putting on a pair of blue rubber gloves as another detective wiped down her gun. He didn't look at her as he spoke.

"He was a good man, you know. Great cop. He didn't deserve what you did to him."

Somehow she was past fear, past despair. It was like being alone in her apartment with Lewis again, watching disaster barrel down towards her and unable to do anything to stop it. There was no reason to be cautious now, to hold back.

"He might have been a good man," she said. "I wouldn't know. But he wasn't a good cop. He jumped to conclusions and supported them in whatever way he could instead of looking for the truth. Just like you're doing – aah -"

He'd kicked her again, hard enough that black spots swam across her vision. She hunched over, her breath coming in tiny gasps. Fletcher shook his head.

"I have to hand it to you. You're pretty brave. You just don't have a lick of sense. It's a miracle you even lived this long. But it's always the worst people who get lucky. All this has gone far enough, Sergeant. I'm going to put you down like the mad dog you are."

He finished putting on the gloves and then picked up her gun, raising it to her head. Olivia closed her eyes briefly. So that was it then. She'd had the temerity to hope that they might have brought her here merely to beat a confession out of her, not murder her in cold blood. But recent events should have taught her that was far too optimistic.

"You can't think you'll get away with this."

He put on an expression of mock-surprise. "Get away with what? It was so tragic the way - what was his name, Weber? It was so tragic how Weber returned to the scene after you arrived. How he wrestled your gun away and then shot you when you tried to run. Another terrible day for the NYPD. You'll get a nice funeral from the city, I imagine. Far better than you deserve."

Olivia ran through the scene in her head, thoughts tumbling frantically. It was believable, if only just. No one would hear the shots - the unfinished insulation on the walls would muffle the sounds. They'd have to wipe the gun or toss it to make sure their fingerprints or DNA weren't on it. Weber would deny it, but who would believe a drug addled murderer over the word of three decorated detectives? There'd be no one to alibi him. The detectives might get a mark on their records for not clearing the scene properly but that would be it.

"You'll never fool Tucker," she said, and she found that her voice shook. "He's too meticulous. He knows how cops hide things. He'll figure out what happened."

"Last I checked, Ed Tucker hired your boyfriend, which makes him an interested party. I'm sure the brass will get a nice, independent commission to look into things." He raised the gun and gestured it towards her. "Now get up. Start running. Who knows, maybe I'll miss. If you can make it out the door before I hit you, we'll call it even."

She didn't move. "If you want to kill me, you'll have to look me in the eye while you do it. I won't make things easier for you."

He shrugged. "Fine by me. I can spin the story either way. Just thought you might like a chance, that's all. And if you think I'll feel bad about shooting Lieutenant Garrett's killer, you're nuts."

He lifted the gun to her head, and Olivia fought the urge to close her eyes. She would face death as it came, not shy away like a coward. A sharp retort echoed through the hall, and Olivia fell back, waiting for the pain to hit.

It didn't.

Fletcher was looking down at his chest, staring at a dark red stain spreading across his suit. He opened his mouth as though to say something and then his legs seemed to give way as he crumpled to the ground, the gun tumbling from his hands.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then everyone whirled towards the stairwell. William Lewis was striding down the hallway, cold amusement on his features, his dark eyes glinting in the dim light. A tendril of smoke rose from the weapon in his hands.

He dropped the second officer with three shots to the chest as he was still fumbling for his gun. The third managed to get off two shots before he went down as well, the left side of his face shearing away in a burst of blood and bone. Olivia watched it all happen, frozen as if in a dream. She didn't move as he lowered his gun and walked towards her, grinning his old grin.

"You didn't really think I'd let anyone else kill you, did you?" he asked softly. "Where would be the fun in that?"

A noise to her right made them both turn. Fletcher was still alive, but fading fast. He was on his hands and knees, crawling towards Olivia's gun laying on the floor.

Lewis let out a long-suffering sigh, grabbing the weapon right as the other man reached it. Fletcher stared at him, pain and incredulity in his eyes.

"You," he rasped. A bubble of blood came out with the word.

"Me," Lewis agreed. "Should have listened to Olivia here while you had the chance."

He raised the gun and shot him in the head, never even blinking. Fletcher jerked once and then lay still, blood pooling on the ground.

Olivia's nerve broke, and so did her paralysis. She scrambled to her feet, trying to run. Lewis was on her before she'd even gone a step, pinning her to the rough wooden floor. She fell onto already bruised ribs, and she lay still, gasping and winded.

Lewis knelt above her, leaning down to whisper in her ear.

"I missed you." He flipped her over to face him, trapping her legs with his. "I thought about you every day I was away. I know you thought about me as well. We have unfinished business."

She still didn't fight him. Something about him always made her freeze up, made her want to curl up and give in. After all the terror and exhaustion of the last few hours and weeks, she had nothing left to fight him with. She could only look up at him through tear filled eyes, shaking hard enough that her breath caught in her lungs.

"Please," she whispered in desperation. "Lewis, please. Don't do this."

He only laughed and shook his head, his hands tugging at her belt, then the button of her slacks. She closed her eyes, trying to think through sheer panic.

"Not here," she said, her voice soft and breathy. "Not here. Someone's going to come. Someone's going to hear."

"I'll risk it," he said calmly.

Her pants slid down her legs, cold air hitting her skin, and she found she had the will to fight after all. She cried out and twisted beneath him, clawing at his face with her fingernails, trying to find leverage to throw him off of her. But he caught her wrists, pinning them to the ground as he slammed her back down. His free hand tore at her shirt as his knees forced hers apart with implacable strength.

He raped her there amid the blood and sawdust, the smell of gunpowder and death still lingering in the air. He held her down on the rough floor, moving hard within her as she screamed with pain and abject horror. His body pressed against hers, his hands slid against her skin, but his eyes never left her face, staring into her with twisted pleasure.

She struggled and fought until her strength gave out and then she could only cry, laying limply as tears ran into her hair and her body shifted against the ground. Lewis slowed in his rhythms, turning her face almost gently to his.

"You should have known," he breathed against her lips. "You should have known our time together could only ever lead to this."

Outside, the night was quiet, the sky slowly darkening into black. Even so, no one heard her screams.


	8. Chapter 8

8.

When Lewis finally finished with her, he flipped her onto her stomach, locking her hands behind her with the handcuffs from her belt. Olivia tolerated it without protest, still trying to wrap her mind around what had happened. He didn't give her much time to reflect, pulling her by the arm to stand on unsteady legs as he pulled up her pants and underwear in an almost businesslike way. Then a gun was shoved at her face, an inch from her eye.

"You and I are going to take a little drive," Lewis said. "But first we're going to take a walk to the car. And you can choose if it's going to be easy or hard. Which one are you going to pick?"

"Easy," she said tonelessly, not looking at him.

He didn't reply, but shoved her forward. Her legs shook beneath her. They passed Fletcher as they walked, and she could feel his dead eyes staring at her as she headed towards a far worse fate. She went meekly through the hall and down the stairs, feeling metal digging into the small of her back. It was only when they were outside in the unpaved lot and she saw a pair of headlights approaching that she struggled in his grip, screaming with all her strength.

The car didn't even slow, even as Lewis threw her to the ground.

"Guess I should have seen that coming," he said.

The gun came down against her temple and then there was nothing.

She awoke very briefly some time later. She was alone in a car - not hers, it smelled like cigarettes and old leather - lying on the floor with her hands cuffed above her. She closed her eyes to try and think what to do and when she opened them again, Lewis was kneeling over her, his fingers in her mouth. They were replaced by a bottle of bitter liquid and she nearly choked, swallowing the alcohol and the pill on her tongue with pure reflex. Lewis chuckled, smoothing her hair.

"Just like old times, huh?"

He climbed into the driver's seat and the engine sputtered to life. Olivia pulled weakly at the handcuffs but they were too solid. She couldn't hold back a tiny moan, pressing her aching head against the floor. After a while, she spoke, barely audible against the rumble of the tires.

"Where are we going?"

Lewis turned and winked at her before looking back at the road. "Someplace special. Don't worry, I checked it out this time so I know we won't be interrupted.

She forced herself to look at him. "What did you do?"

"Well, a while ago, I happened to come across an old lady. Mean old broad, all alone, pissed off her kids enough that they never wanted to visit." He lowered his voice. "She was real sweet near the end, though. And she had a nice place. Great insulation."

"You're sick, Lewis," she said quietly. "Every time I think you can't get worse, you always manage to surprise me."

"What, you thought I'd just keep my head down and play nice as I waited for you? After all this time, it's like you don't know me at all."

"I know you. You're pathetic. You don't like picking fights with anyone who can fight back."

He tsked. "There's no reason to be rude. You should be more grateful. I saved your life."

"You set me up."

"Yes," he agreed. "Funny how well that worked. I thought at best they'd hassle you a little bit before they figured out it was me. But they thought you actually did it. Even after everything you've done. Just goes to show there's no point in helping people. They smile and play nice when they need you, but when things come down to it, they'll turn on you in a second. At least I'm honest about it."

They were silent for a while. The radio murmured diffidently in the background. Olivia shook her head, trying to clear the cobwebs from her thoughts. She couldn't let herself fall asleep, refused to be helpless and in his clutches again.

"So how did you break out of prison?" she asked, mostly to keep herself awake.

Lewis shrugged. "It wasn't hard. I got one of the guards to help me."

Olivia tried for a smirk. "A guard, huh? Didn't know you had it in you."

Lewis's laughter rang through the car, bright and irrepressible. "I guess after all those years in SVU, you're bound to think everything comes down to sex. But here's what I've learned. People are weak. Deep down, everyone's dying to drink the kool-aid, march in step. And once in a while you find someone who's truly lost, who's already teetering on the edge, well, they're like dogs waiting for a master. Convince them you have the answers and they'll do whatever you need."

She didn't reply. She could feel the drugs seeping into her system, tugging at her eyelids, slackening her muscles. After a while, Lewis spoke again, and she could hear the anticipation in his voice.

"Either way, that's all in the past. Now that we're back together, we can get reacquainted. You can do all the things you were going to do for me before we were interrupted last time. We might have to think of a new way to convince you though. I'm not sure your life is worth as much as it used to be."

Perhaps it was the drugs, but her mouth seemed to be working faster than her mind. She felt the words come out before she could stop herself.

"You really think what you've done was enough to make me just call it quits?"

It was a bad idea to keep baiting him, and she regretted it immediately. But Lewis only looked at her through the rear view mirror, his eyes bright and amused.

"You're so naive, Olivia. It's almost sweet. I hate to tell you this, but you're already dead. I could let you out of the car right now and you'd still be dead. There were four cops in that building back there. Three have been killed and the remaining one was a murder suspect who's apparently run off."

She blinked with horrified realization, and Lewis chucked, lowering his voice. "If there's one thing your friends back there hate, it's cop killers. Right now, as far as they know, you're the worst one in decades. They're going to be hunting you like dogs, sweetheart, not as saviors. If I don't kill you, the NYPD will."

She was losing her battle with unconsciousness, her tongue heavy in her mouth, her eyelids fluttering shut.

"I didn't..." she murmured, she wasn't sure to who.

Lewis smiled at her almost tenderly. "Sleep," he said softly. "You're going to need it. You've got a long couple days ahead."

And despite everything, she slept.

* * *

The beeping of his cell phone woke Amaro up at 4 AM, and he reached for it blindly, still mostly asleep.

"Amaro."

Fin's voice was on the other end. "Better get down to the precinct. Shit's going down."

"What –" he started to say, but the line had gone dead.

He got out of bed and dressed himself mostly on muscle memory, wondering in a vague sort of way why Fin had called him instead of Olivia. Her promotion meant that she was the one calling everyone in nowadays, a job he didn't envy. It was out of character for her to pawn it off on Fin.

Realization finally hit him and he froze, one arm in his jacket. Fin wouldn't be calling him unless Olivia couldn't.

Suddenly, he didn't feel tired anymore.

He drove to work as fast as he dared, his mind racing. His first thought was that she'd been arrested, that Homicide had finally trumped up enough evidence to bring charges. That would be bad, but on the scale of things it would be a lesser evil.

_Anyone but Lewis. Please, God, anyone but Lewis._

The station house was absolutely swarming with people when he arrived, and he got a couple second looks as he worked his way through the crowd. SVU's squad room was also packed with people, mostly with detectives, almost none of whom he knew. Fin was standing off to one side looking more unsettled than he'd ever looked. Amaro started towards him to ask what was going on, but halfway across the room a vaguely familiar man stepped in front of him, cutting him off.

"Detective Amaro?"

"Uh, yeah." He ran a list of names and faces through his tired mind before managing to place him. "Lieutenant Murphy, right? You headed the search for William Lewis a couple months back."

"That's me." He extended his hand to shake. "Sorry we had to meet again under these circumstances."

So the news was bad. "Has Lewis been spotted again, then?"

"Afraid not. I'm here because I've been put in temporary charge of SVU. They figured since I've worked with you guys before – "

Amaro interrupted him. "In charge? What happened to Olivia?"

Murphy looked grim. "Last night Sergeant Benson was called out to consult on a crime scene by the remaining members of Lieutenant Garrett's squad. When none of them came back after a couple hours, they sent some guys to check on them. The three detectives were dead. Benson was gone."

The world felt faint for a moment, and Amaro clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. "So she's been abducted?"

"No. They think she killed them and ran."

He heard the words but couldn't process them. "What? Why would they think that?"

"They put a rush on ballistics. Most of the bullets matched the ones that killed Garrett for a total of a full clip. The last bullet was from her gun. DNA won't be back for a while, but based on blood type, the only blood is the dead detectives' and there was no sign of a struggle. No hint that she didn't just leave on her own volition. The car she used is gone. GPS disabled."

Amaro struggled for a moment. "But why would she do it? It doesn't make any sense."

"Honestly? She'd have a pretty good case for self-defense if it weren't for that last shot. The reasons they gave for calling her down there were sketchy as hell. They all had their guns out – it's likely they threatened her first. But that last shot was point blank through the head. That's not self-defense. And she's gone, and running makes her look all the more guilty."

"She didn't run." His head was pounding. "It had to be Lewis. He took her and killed anyone who got in his way. He's done it before."

"There's been no sight or sound of Lewis for months now. I would know. A lot of people aren't even sure he's alive anymore. A couple people mentioned him, but quite frankly, the brass don't want to bring him back into the spotlight again unless they're sure. No matter how you spin it, the Lewis thing makes the city look bad. Either he escapes from jail right under everyone's noses, or…"

"Or an NYPD officer had him disappeared right before she wasted a bunch of other cops," Amaro finished scornfully. "That's not what happened. If they knew the first thing about her –"

"You're right. None of the investigators really knew much about her. So let me tell you how it looks from an outside perspective. She's a good cop. Highly decorated. But then something happens to her over the summer. She takes two months off and then she comes back. But she's changed. She's distracted, quicker to jump to conclusions. Complaints about excessive use of force go up. I read a couple of them myself. She knees a handcuffed man as she's putting him into the car. She hits a guy for mouthing off during an interrogation, hard enough to leave a mark. She even goes off on a traumatized victim in an interrogation. All signs of a cop who's out of control."

Amaro felt an uncomfortable twinge of memory, but he brushed it aside. "Those were false –" he started to say, before Murphy held up a hand to forestall him.

"Don't lie to me," he said flatly. "You can lie to the investigators, you can lie to the brass, and you can lie to the jury. But don't lie to me. Because I might be the last cop in New York who still wants to help you, and I can't do that if you're not honest with me. There are plenty of false complaints about force. That's why you look at trends. So it's strange that complaints about her excessive use of force spiked when she came back. So let me ask you again, were some of those valid?"

Amaro hesitated. "She did have a couple of… incidents."

"So yes. Your captain let her back on the squad before she was ready. Maybe he was trying to be kind but he only hurt her in the end. She's got PTSD, pressure from the job. Lewis disappears, and that's just one stressor too many. Detective Rollins is having troubles of her own – big ones – and she goes to Olivia's apartment to complain or talk things over. Things get out of hand. Maybe Rollins even draws a gun. Olivia defends herself but goes too far, hits her too hard. She panics at the idea of going to jail, tries to cover it up. But the homicide detectives are on to her. When she finds out one of them is staking out her apartment, she loses her temper, confronts him, ends up shooting him too. The rest of his squad lures her out in middle of nowhere – to talk, to kill her, who knows? But she's fast – she's proven that before - she draws before they do. She walks out, they don't. But she knows she has no deniability anymore. She runs."

"That's crazy," Amaro snapped. "That's not what happened."

"But it's plausible."

Amaro turned away. "I thought you said you still wanted to help."

Murphy's voice was quiet. "I'm not saying I believe it. But that's the working theory, and that's what most of the precinct thinks. They're on the warpath. Nothing like this has happened in living memory."

"Oh yeah? Then why don't you think the same thing?"

Murphy paused, actually seeming to consider the question. "Anyone can crack under stress. Makes people do a lot of things they wouldn't otherwise. But from what I've seen there are two ways that happens. They destroy themselves or they destroy others. Benson seems like the former. From what I've seen of her, this just doesn't make sense."

It wasn't exactly a shining vote of confidence, but Amaro would take what he could get. "So what now?"

"They're not going to let you near her case. You're too involved –"

"_Too involved_," Amaro snarled. "Lewis is doing God knows what to her out there and they're not even looking for him –"

"Which gives you free rein on the Lewis case," Murphy interrupted. "Find him. He's mixed up with what happened, one way or another. The brass deny it, but they know it too. Right now you're off all your other cases, Find out what happened with him." He paused. "I don't have to tell you what happens if you fail."


	9. Chapter 9

9.

Olivia was pulled from a heavy sleep by the faint squeal of brakes, the engine falling silent. The sky outside was still fully dark, wisps of clouds framing the faint glow of stars. She tried to process what any of it meant, but found she was too tired, her eyes beginning to close again.

The car door opened abruptly, jerking her arms in their sockets. Hands were working at the metal around her wrists, then pulling her upright and out of the car, her feet hitting cement. Her body was stiff from hours of immobility, her legs refusing to respond to her commands. A house loomed before her, darkened and ominous.

The inside of the house looked very much like the home of an older woman, filled with lacy tablecloths and faded furniture. But the floor was covered with cigarette butts and other garbage, broken glass and knicknacks scattered about. Lewis had clearly been there for a while. He didn't give her much chance to look around. He half-carried, half-dragged her further into the house, past a living room and a kitchen, towards a doorway with a staircase that led downwards into darkness. It was there that she finally gathered her wits enough to whimper and try to pull away, but it was useless. He maneuvered her past the door and then further on, shoving her down the last couple steps. She hit the ground hard and he was on her before she could even catch her breath.

He beat her viciously in the semidarkness of the cellar, his fists striking her ribs, her stomach, her back. Each blow seemed to send shocks of white hot pain through her entire body, radiating throughout her core. She'd been struck before but she'd never been beaten. She'd never been thrown down to the ground and hurt so violently - hit over and over until she could barely breathe. She couldn't fight him. All she could do was try to shield her head and wait for him to finish.

Finally, he stopped.

After a few moments, she raised her head weakly to stare in his direction. He was silhouetted against the illumination from the top of the stairs, outlined in light and shadow. His shoulders heaved with exertion but his face was expressionless, no hint of anger or even pleasure. Blood glinted wetly on his knuckles.

"Lewis," she croaked. "Lewis, please..."

He dragged her to her feet before she could finish, shoving her further into the cellar. She staggered and nearly fell, every limb aching. He caught her, a hand tangling into her hair as he forced her forward. Near the center of the room, a length of chain hung from a ceiling beam, and she blinked at it, mouth dry.

"Lewis..."

Quicker than her dulled senses would have believed, he'd freed one of her hands and looped a cuff through the chain before placing it back on her wrist. The chain was placed just barely too high, enough that she'd always have to stay slightly on her toes or hang painfully from her wrists.

Lewis took a step back to inspect his work, his eyes lingering on uncomfortable places. She shuddered, feeling horrifically exposed. Her shirt was already shredded badly enough to be a mere formality, her pants unzipped and barely clinging to her hips.

Apparently, he liked what he saw though, because he moved forward and caressed the skin of her stomach, smiling as she shivered and shied away.

He raised his hand to touch her face. "A couple months ago I asked you if you wanted me to burn your clothes off or cut them off. What did you say? I don't remember."

She turned her head, trying to hold back tears.

He shrugged, glancing down and digging through his pockets. "It doesn't matter anyway. I think it's my turn to pick."

There was a distinct flick of a lighter and Olivia looked up abruptly. The yellow light illuminated the shadowy crags of his face as he looked at her with an all too familiar expression of gleeful interest. She was frozen in place, too stunned to even protest. Even after everything that had happened, she still couldn't bring herself to believe that Lewis could go this far this fast.

He bent down, pinning her foot to the ground with his as he moved the lighter closer to her leg. For a moment, she thought nothing had happened - maybe the cloth was insufficiently flammable. But then the flickering yellow light grew brighter, throwing the shelves into sharp relief. The pain hit a second later, her skin cracking and blistering beneath the intense heat as she struggled fruitlessly against the handcuffs, the metal cutting into her flesh.

"Don't do this," she managed to gasp, her eyes seeking out his. "Please don't. Please."

He only looked at her, his lips curled up in a tiny smile.

Maybe he meant to kill her this way, she thought, hyperventilating as the flames crept higher. He'd already raped her back at the crime scene. He'd proven his point and what else did he need? He'd gotten what he wanted from her and now he'd burn her alive like so much unwanted garbage.

"Lewis, please," she screamed. "I'll do anything. I'll do anything, I swear. Please."

He turned on his heel and disappeared behind a shelf. She thought he'd gone away - not even curious enough to watch her die - but he returned a second later with a bucket of water. He threw it over her with a single motion and the flames extinguished in a hiss of steam. She hung there limply in her bonds, too numb with terror and relief to even react. He walked over to her, lifting her chin with his fingers, studying her face.

"You don't mean it yet," he said after a moment. "But you will."

He gagged her with tape and blindfolded her too for good measure. Then he left her there alone, to tremble in the dark and cold.

At first the cold was the worst part. Water dripped off her skin and clothes, hitting the ground with audible splashes. It hurt to shiver. It hurt her ribs and her muscles and the new wound on her side. Even so, she shook hard enough that her chest felt tight, her breath coming in shuddering bursts.

As her clothes dried, the numbness in her arms built into pain, metal cutting sharply into her wrists. She tried to ignore it, shifting her body to relieve the pressure. It didn't help. Time passed in absolute darkness and silence. Once in a while she thought she heard Lewis move upstairs, but she couldn't be sure. White spots rippled before her vision, her eyes flittering back and forth at nothing.

After a while, she decided to try taking off the blindfold, worrying at it against her arm. The cloth slid slowly down her face, finally dropping down to hang against her chest. The world wasn't much different with her eyes uncovered, still darkness and little else. She could see faint outlines of shelves and boxes scattered about haphazardly, walls but no windows. No exit but the door up the stairs.

She glanced down at herself then closed her eyes immediately. She could see the bruises rising on her skin already, and a long, ugly burn along her side. It would be another scar to add to her collection. If she even lived that long.

When she'd collected herself, she tilted her head upwards, looking at the steel that bound her hands above her. The cuffs were looped through a much larger chain that had been strung through a hole in a ceiling beam. The wood was old but not rotted. If she worked with the chain enough, she could perhaps lengthen the hole, break through the beam. And then -

_It would take days,_ her mind informed her calmly. It would take days if she was at full strength, never mind now. But what choice did she have? She reached up towards the chain.

Suddenly, the twisted cloth of the blindfold tightened around her neck, yanking her backwards. She managed half a gasp before her air was cut off entirely, her hands jerking in her cuffs. Lewis had appeared behind her, as silent as ever.

"Don't," he whispered. His hand was reaching up to hers, brushing her fingers. "Don't even think about it."

He bent her index finger back slowly, inexorably, until it broke with an audible snap. She tried to scream but no sound came out. He gave her a little shake with the cloth around her neck, his lips next to her ear.

"Try again and, I'll cut it off instead. Understand?"

She gave a tiny frantic nod, dizzy from lack of air.

He released her and replaced the blindfold, then left her alone again. He didn't even give her the chance to beg him to stop, she thought, as her hand throbbed miserably. She might have done it. Maybe that was the problem. Everyone overestimated her strength.

She feared what was coming, but waiting was a kind of torture as well. He'd known this last time, used it against her. By the time he'd chained her to the bed in that empty beach house, she'd been out of her mind with fear and pain, ready to give in if only to get things over with. And time was on his side now. He could leave her here until she was half dead from dehydration, until her hands were permanently damaged from hanging like this. Then she'd have no shot at all. Better to take her chances while she still had the strength.

And in any case, one fact was undeniable. The sooner this began, the sooner it would be over.

She let out a breath, lowered her head, and waited.

When he finally returned, it was as sudden as ever. The blindfold was yanked from her head, the tape ripped from her mouth, making her head jerk abruptly to the side. He said nothing, watching her, his head tilted slightly to the left.

She spoke without prompting. "Please." Her voice trembled. "Rape me. Do what you want. Just let me down."

In the darkness, she felt him smile more than she saw it. "I knew you'd come around."

He circled around her, a hand trailing slowly upwards. Suddenly, he jerked her head back by the hair, his other hand tugging at her waist. The remnants of her pants slid down her legs and she couldn't hold back a cry of horror.

"We can take it easy this time," he whispered, his breath hot against her neck. "Just to get you settled in."

She could feel him pressing against her, warm against her skin. Both hands were at her hips now, and he pulled her towards him as he eased inside of her.

Compared to last time he was almost gentle, moving slowly, almost tenderly, like she wasn't hanging bruised and mostly naked from a chain in a dead woman's basement. But she was still sore from earlier and every movement pulled her injured wrists against the chain, sending bolts of agony down her arms. And nothing could disguise the sheer sense of violation, the knowledge that this was only the very start. She cried silently, her tears hitting the dirty floor.

She felt him finish, his fingers digging into her skin. After a moment, he reached upwards, stretching an arm above her head. Her wrist was released with an appalling suddenness and she tumbled down, hitting the ground hard. Her hands tingled and stung as blood rushed back into her arms and she tried to hold back a whimper of pain.

Lewis nudged her with his foot. "Get up," he said. "Time to go upstairs."

Slowly, she started to push herself off the ground. Her hands worked, but barely. She reached for her pants with her unbroken hand, but Lewis pinned her down by the wrist.

"No. Take them off."

She felt tears prickling at her eyes again. "Lewis, please."

He looked at her implacably. "Either these stay here or you do. And trust me, you won't enjoy what happens down here."

She gritted her teeth and obeyed. Afterwards, he pulled her upright, steadying her as she wobbled on her feet. The only bits of clothing she had left were the tattered scraps of her shirt and she found herself shivering again with both fear and cold.

He pushed her up the stairs and she braced herself for what came next.


	10. Chapter 10

10.

In the darkness of the cellar, the world had been timeless. The only hint of the passing hours had been the pain in her arms and a growing thirst. Up in the kitchen, the light filtering past the heavy blinds suggested it was early afternoon. In the distance, she could hear the rumbling of cars, but nothing else.

Lewis saw her looking at the window and tightened his grip on her arm. "Try it," he said softly. "I dare you."

She didn't.

He was steering her down a dim hallway. A door at the end was open just a crack. But before they reached it, he threw her against the wall, shoving her to her knees. She closed her eyes as he reached for his belt again, metal clinking inches from her face.

His voice came again. "Now's your chance to prove you're a woman of your word. And I think trust is very important to establish in a relationship, don't you?"

She chanced a glance upwards then squeezed her eyes shut, turning her head and clenching her jaw. He was standing too close to her, obscuring most of her vision. She could smell his scent, feel the heat of his skin. He grabbed her by the chin forcing her to tilt her head higher. Her gun pressed lightly into the side of her jaw and her eyes shot open.

"And I know, sweetheart, that you're going to be tempted to do something rash. But if you do, I promise I can make you regret it. Believe me, I can make you sorry you were ever born. Understand?" Steel pressed harder into her face.

She nodded, crying again.

"Good. Open up."

She tried to convince herself it was meaningless, that the sooner she obeyed, the sooner it would be over. It didn't help. She couldn't willingly give herself to this.

Pain exploded across her face and she gasped, nearly falling. His hands forced her head upwards, his thumb pulling at her chin, and she gagged as his flesh hit the back of her throat. She couldn't breathe. He was going too hard, pushing too far. Her neck strained from the violence of his movements, her scalp ached from his tight grip on her hair.

After a few minutes he pulled back, yanking her hair again, forcing her to face him.

"Is this what you meant when you said you'd do anything to live? Because I have to tell you, sweetheart, you're not making a very good case for yourself."

She took a breath that was mostly a sob. "Please. Please stop."

"I'm not saying I don't like hearing you beg. But I think we covered that ground pretty thoroughly last time. You're going to have to think of something new if you want me to keep you around."

She opened her mouth to reply, but he grabbed her face, pushing past her lips again. She choked, her head hitting the wall behind her. His movements became faster and more shallow and she finally felt him come into her mouth, the taste of him making her retch. He pulled away but put a hand over her mouth and another beneath her chin, forcing her head upward again.

"Swallow," he whispered.

It was perhaps a sign of how far she'd already fallen that she didn't even fight him. She closed her eyes and obeyed, her throat working spasmodically.

He pushed her backwards and she slumped against the wall, panting, tears leaking past her eyelids. In a way, it hurt worse than what came before. Not physically, but somewhere deep in her heart. She'd given in so easily. If her team knew - but they would, wouldn't they? He'd kill her and then he'd rhapsodize about her death to the next set of detectives. It was only a matter of how long it would take.

As if he'd heard her thoughts, he grabbed her arm, pulling her upright. "Come on. We're wasting time."

He pushed her towards the end of the hall. The final door opened up to a bedroom, neat, but smelling of dust. In the center was a bed - queen-sized, wood framed, ordinary except for the ropes tied to the posts at all four corners.

She stared at them, mouth dry. How could she have thought - how could she have even dreamed that coming up here would be better than staying downstairs?

He prodded her forward and she panicked, struggling wildly in his grip. She actually broke free for a moment and lunged towards the door before he caught her by her arms and pulled her back. He threw her face down on the bed and knelt across her, pinning her down with his knees.

"I thought you were going to be good?"

"Lewis," she gasped. "Don't do this. Lewis, please -"

He said nothing but flipped her onto her back, releasing one hand briefly before binding it to the bedpost. He tied the other one to the other side, tightening the knot so that the rope cut into her skin. Her legs were harder. She struggled and kicked at him, squirming against the mattress. He finally pinned one leg down, crushing it with his full body weight as he tied the other, then repeating the process. Her legs were spread too wide, her muscles straining beneath her skin.

He watched her struggle hopelessly for a while, pulling against the ropes and crying. Something about lying there prone, bound so tightly, made reality crash through the final layer of denial. He was going to do whatever he wanted to her, and she was helpless to stop him.

He waited until she wore herself out, until she lay still on the bed, her chest heaving, her breath catching in her throat. Then he was on her, a hand between legs, his lips trailing up her chest. She shuddered, unable to pull away.

"I wanted our first time to be like this," he whispered, his breath tickling her skin. "But I guess I just couldn't wait. We can still make this one memorable though, right?"

Any pretense of gentleness was gone, and he drove into her mercilessly, slamming her against the mattress. His hands were all over her body, calluses catching against her skin. She told herself she wouldn't scream, but they tore themselves out of her throat anyway, one after another, harsh and ragged. A hand pressed over her mouth as Lewis hissed at her to shut up, but he didn't break his rhythm. If anything he went harder, the creaking of the mattress a counterpoint to his grunts of exertion.

Olivia choked back another cry of pain as she turned her head beneath his hand. Her wrists were already bleeding, a drop of red rolling down her arm to drip on the mattress. Just beyond it was a window, with the sun shining perversely through the blinds.

Then his hand wrapped around her neck, jerking her head forward again.

"Keep your eyes on me, sweetheart. There's nothing for you out there. It's just you and me baby, for as long as we need." He lowered his voice. "You and I are going to have a lot of fun here. And we're going to find out together just what it takes for you to call it quits."


	11. Chapter 11

11.

The second time he raped her on the bed, he was gentle again, moving slowly, almost teasingly. As he did, he talked, whispering to her about what he'd done to his previous victims, what he was going to do to her next. His breath was hot on her skin, his words dark with promise. She tried not to listen, staring past him instead with an almost clinical hatred, refusing to give any sign she was bothered.

He noticed and paused, looking her up and down.

"Nothing? It doesn't get you off anymore?" He smoothed an errant strand of hair from her face. "How about this? I can tell you what happened with Detective Rollins all those weeks back. I know you've been dying to find out."

Olivia closed her eyes. _No_.

"She let her guard down, you know. Just like you. And I was there waiting. And you know what? She looked at me like she was expecting me, like she thought she had bought this and that it was her turn to face the fire. But when I told her we were going to your place, there was a moment - maybe just a moment, that she looked relieved. What do you think of that?"

She didn't answer. He was moving again, with a slow steady rhythm that set her nerves on edge. She almost preferred the pain from earlier.

"If it makes you feel any better, I doubt she saw her death coming. She thought we'd wait for you to come back. I only had to hit her once to crack her skull. She died pretty fast after that. I mean, she twitched a little -"

"Stop," she whispered and Lewis smiled at her, then bucked his hips, hurting her deliberately.

"Thought we agreed that you shouldn't try and tell me what to do. Besides, it could be worse. I was tempted to have a little fun with her, but in the end, I decided it wasn't worth the risk. That's what you want, isn't it? You instead of them."

Olivia didn't reply. Lewis was no longer so gentle, going faster, the cords standing out on his neck, a sheen of sweat covering his skin. When he was done, he didn't move away. He leaned over her, watching her face, his thumb moving in small circles across her breast.

"Are you disappointed with her? Knowing how it went down? Because when you think about it, she could have stopped this. We passed a few people on the way there. She could have screamed or signaled someone. She'd be just as dead, but you wouldn't be here today." When she was silent, his hand clamped down, drawing another whimper of pain. "Well?"

Olivia let out a breath. "If she did," she said softly. "If you're telling the truth, I don't hold it against her. She'd never risk getting a civilian involved. And she probably thought my boyfriend was already home, or me. Someone who could help her. It was a calculated risk. She was trying to save her life. There's nothing wrong with that."

"You're right," Lewis mused. "It was the right choice, the sane choice. Anyone would have done it. Except you. You never really fought me, except when I threatened someone else. You have the least sense of self-preservation out of anyone I've ever met."

He straddled her again, his weight resting on her hips, a hand cupping her cheek. He kissed her gently at the side of her neck, and she closed her eyes, turning her face away.

"You and I are alike that way, I think. We're both empty places in the world. Born to families who didn't want us, denied all the things that came to everyone else so easily. Love, normalcy, stability... But the difference between us is that you let it drag you down. You chased all the things you could never have, let people use you and cast you aside, because you thought you owed them somehow, like you thought your very existence was a crime. But to me, it was freeing. I did whatever I wanted without fear or limits. And look where it led us."

He traced his hand slowly down her bare skin, lingering on her breasts, her hips, before going lower, teasing at her entrance. She flinched and he grinned at her. "I don't regret my choices. Do you?"

She could feel his fingers easing inside of her, and she cringed, pressing herself harder into the mattress.

"Is that why you came after me?" she asked, more to distract him than out of any real interest. "Because you thought we were alike?"

He actually seemed to consider the question, though his fingers never stopped moving, probing her flesh just beneath the threshold of pain.

"No," he said after a while. "Not really. I bet all of you thought that if I went after anyone, it would have been Amanda. Pretty little blonde thing who started this whole mess by getting too nosy in the park. Of course she'd be my first pick, right? You and I had our little moment in the interrogation room, but you'd already convinced the whole world you were untouchable. So someone went out with her that night, walked her to her apartment, while you went home alone. Straight to me."

He twisted his hand and she let out an involuntary groan, muffling it between clenched teeth. "That's not - that's not an answer."

"No," he agreed. "It's hard to explain. But when we were talking, that first time, I saw the fear in your eyes, just the tiniest flash. And you looked like someone who wasn't used to fear. I wanted to see if I could change that." He lowered his voice. "I spent all those months in jail thinking about all the things we were going to do together when I got out. Now we've got time to work though them all, one by one." He turned her head to face him again, the wetness on his fingers making her shudder. "What do you think of that?"

She took a breath, refusing to look at him. "Do what you're going to do. I can't stop you."

He smirked. "You got that right."

The next several rounds were relatively silent. She didn't scream, even when he hurt her, when he did things that left bruises or made her bleed. She only stared up at the ceiling, her eyes empty, enduring. He could do what he wanted to her but she could make sure he got as little satisfaction from it as possible.

It was only when he freed her hand to turn her onto her stomach that she came alive again, jabbing at his eye with her thumb. It missed, but only barely, striking a hard blow just below his eye socket. He lurched back, then snarled and caught her arm, pinning it down to the mattress. They stared at each other for a moment, a drop of blood working its way down Lewis's cheek. Then he sighed, shaking his head.

"You really don't learn, do you?"

He bound her hand to the headboard again and climbed off the bed. He grabbed a roll of duct tape on the dresser and picked at the corner.

"I think it's time I make a few things clear about what happens when you fuck with me."

He taped over her mouth, then slipped the blindfold over her eyes as well, leaving her in darkness. His footsteps retreated from the room, creaking on the floorboards as Olivia strained to hear where he was going, her heart pounding in her chest. She pulled at the ropes around her wrists again but they were unyielding as ever. In the distance, she could hear Lewis rummaging around, something clattering to the ground. He returned all too quickly, easing back onto the foot of the bed.

He shifted, bending forward. Something hard brushed against her thigh, and she realized what was coming. She shrieked, struggling in vain to close her legs.

"This is going to make the rest of our time together a lot less pleasant for you," he said. "But I think you'll learn a valuable lesson about not pissing me off."

She shook her head wildly, pulling at the ropes, letting out muffled cries of protest. Lewis paused for a moment, pulling back and leaning over her. "You don't want this?"

She shook her head again, her breath coming in hysterical gasps.

Lewis moved again, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "It's funny how you still think you get a choice." He shoved it inside her with a single motion.

It was too big, with hard corners that tore at her flesh. She let out a scream of absolute agony, her back arching, her legs flailing uselessly against the mattress. Lewis laughed with faint contempt, pinning her down by her stomach with his free hand.

"You know you shouldn't do that." He sounded indifferent. "You're only going to tear yourself up worse."

She couldn't listen to him. All meaning had been washed away in sheer horror as he thrust it inside her again and again with increasing violence. She struggled and screamed until she couldn't, and then she simply endured, her hands hanging limply from the ropes, tears soaking into her blindfold. The world seemed to be drifting further away, consumed by pain, her eyelids fluttering shut.

Finally he stopped, but he left it inside her as he leaned over her shuddering frame, a hand stroking her hair.

"Are you going to keep pulling these stunts? Because I don't mind, but it seems like you do."

She shook her head as hard as she could manage, barely able to breathe behind her gag.

"I didn't think so."

He finally pulled it out of her, letting it clatter to the floor. Warm liquid trickled out in its wake, and she thought she could smell the tint of copper in the air. It made her dizzy, her head spinning with pain and fear. Lewis was silent for a while, but she could feel his eyes on her, watching her with interest.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" he said softly.

She nodded, afraid any hint of defiance might would make him start up again. She could hear the sound of cloth sliding against skin at the foot of the bed, the mattress creaking again.

"So will this, I'm afraid. But really, you brought it on yourself. At least you'll know better next time."

She could feel the heat of his skin against her thighs, hear him readying himself. She squeezed her eyes shut behind the blindfold, trying to brace herself for more agony even as she knew there was no way she could be prepared.

But suddenly, he paused, going very still. She didn't understand why he'd stopped until she tried to listen too.

Somewhere inside the house, a cell phone was ringing.


	12. Chapter 12

12.

Once his meeting with Murphy was over, Amaro headed to the elevators immediately, hitting the button for the lowest level. He saw Cassidy right as he stepped out the doors, walking down the hall, his eyes bloodshot. Cassidy saw him as well, opening his mouth to speak, but Amaro didn't give him the chance. He lunged forward, grabbing the other man by the lapels.

"Who the fuck did you tell?" he snarled, shoving him into the wall.

Cassidy looked too surprised to fight back, holding up his hands placatingly. "What are you talking about?"

"A couple weeks ago, you told me guys were giving you shit about Olivia being at my house in middle of the night," Amaro said between gritted teeth. "And now I had a police lieutenant tell me that he heard it was a false alibi right after a bunch of detectives lured her out to the middle of nowhere because they thought she killed Garrett. And I know I didn't tell anyone else, so you better tell me _who the fuck _you_ told _about it because maybe you just got her killed."

There was a flicker of horror in Cassidy's expression, immediately replaced by defensiveness as he shoved Amaro back. "What makes you so sure it was me? You were the one yelling it all over the parking lot. Maybe you're just a shitty liar."

Amaro stepped back, giving him a tight, humorless smile. "Hey man, I'm not even here to point fingers. I don't care that you've got no idea how to keep your mouth shut. I just want to know who here has it out for her."

Cassidy frowned. "What?"

"Someone here's got to be helping Lewis. Everything was set up too well for Liv to take the fall. I want to know who it is."

Cassidy was shaking his head. "I don't know. Homicide's up to some shit, no question. Doesn't mean they're helping Lewis. I mean, aren't you doing the same thing they are?"

Amaro glared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"It's just that we all turned on each other pretty quick, didn't we? First Homicide so sure that Olivia killed Rollins… and now she disappears and your first thought is that someone on the inside is helping Lewis. If it's really just him, we're not exactly making things hard for him, are we?"

"You're pretty trusting for a guy in IAB."

Cassidy shrugged. "Maybe. All I know is that there are maybe three people left in this whole place who are still on Olivia's side, and two of them are screaming at each other in the basement. You don't like me. I get it. I'm not exactly about to pucker up and ask you out to prom either. If you really need it, we can fight it out when this is all over, but if we want to do anything for Olivia, we need to help each other out for once."

Amaro closed his eyes, counting to ten. If Cassidy was being the voice of reason, the world had truly gone insane.

"Fine," he said. "Tell me what happened. When did you find out she was gone?"

"She called and told me she was going to give a consult on a case and she wouldn't be back until late. I called her around midnight and she didn't answer the phone, so I called the precinct. After that… well, you know."

"You didn't call her until midnight? You didn't think it was weird she'd stay out that late on a case that wasn't hers?"

"Rollins died in our living room," Cassidy said incredulously. "Neither of us liked being in the apartment anymore. She only ever came back to sleep, and she didn't even do much of that. I told her we should just take the hit as far as money and just move, but she wouldn't do it."

"Why not?"

Cassidy shrugged, looking at the ground. "Beats me. Once in a while we'd hear someone walk by close to the door and she'd always tense up, like she thought they were going to come bursting inside. Sometimes I thought maybe she wanted Lewis to find her, to finally get things over with or something."

Amaro rubbed his eyes. These were too many revelations for him to handle in a few short hours. One thing was clear though. There was nothing any of them could have done to prevent what just happened. They could have put it off, changed the conditions, but they couldn't have stopped it. Olivia and Lewis were bound to have their one last confrontation, as inevitably as the seasons or the tides. All they could do now was to try and mitigate the damage.

"Okay," he said finally. "They're not going to let either of us anywhere near Olivia's case. But keep your ear to the ground. If they sound like they've got a solid lead, call me."

_Because we need to get there first_, he thought, but didn't say aloud. Cassidy knew it as well as him.

The other man nodded. "What are you going to do?"

Amaro had already turned back to the elevators. "I'm going to go find Lewis."

* * *

Amaro's first stop was to find the jury forewoman from Lewis's trial, the one who'd given the inflammatory interview to the tabloid. She was at home when he knocked, and had plenty to say about Lewis and Olivia, none of it good. She was still convinced that Lewis had been set up to cover for Olivia's bad decisions, and that the recent spate of killings was the final bit of proof that they had sent an innocent man to prison on the word of a bad cop. If there was anyone left on earth that would be willing to help Lewis, it would be her.

But somehow, he didn't think she did. She had none of the nervous caginess he'd expect from someone hiding so big a secret, and her anger was too genuine. She truly believed that Lewis was dead, killed by Olivia or someone acting on her behalf. Perhaps she would have been willing to conceal him, to help him get away. But she hadn't.

Amaro let her rant for a little longer before excusing himself, walking back out into the warm summer air. One lead down, he thought grimly, and about a thousand left to go.

He spent the morning talking to Lewis's few known associates, following up on the few plausible tips they'd gotten recently. Everything came up empty. A shade before noon, he sat alone in his car, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel.

This was impossible. He'd been deluded to think it might be anything else. If three full squads of detectives with the full backing of the NYPD couldn't find Lewis in a month, it was absurd to think he might do it by himself in the matter of – what, a day? A week? How long did Olivia have left? The problem now was the problem with too many investigations – that there were a thousand potential clues, all of them ephemeral, like soap bubbles in the wind, disappearing when he reached out for them. What he wouldn't give for one solid lead, one point in Lewis's timeline that crossed with something real that he could track.

The answer came slowly, with no sense of revelation. The prison escape, of course. Lewis's skill lay with people, not walls, and Amaro doubted he could have gotten out on his own. Someone must have helped him, most likely someone on the inside. Finding who it was would be his best chance of getting to Lewis. It wasn't exactly an original thought. But he was rapidly running out of time and options.

He put his car into gear and peeled off towards Rikers.

He was let into the prison without much trouble, shown immediately to the office of the head correctional officer, a man named Dean Evans. He looked at Amaro with mild interest as he explained his case, then shook his head.

"I don't know what you expect to find here," he said laconically. "You're about the sixth detective to come by asking those same questions in the last couple months. The last two who did it are dead now, and William Lewis still hasn't been caught. Not really a good sign.

So Fletcher and Garrett had come here too, walked away empty handed. Amaro tried not to feel discouraged. "What did the last two want?"

"Wanted to know if there was any way Lewis could have been killed by request, then had it covered up.

Amaro fought down a flash of anger. "And what did you say?"

"Off the record? Let me tell you something. If Sergeant Benson wanted him dead, she could have pulled it off without even trying. She could have gotten some fucked up lifer to shiv him right in the cafeteria for the price of a couple boxes of cigarettes. It would never have been traced back to her. Killing a guy is easy. Making him just disappear like this is a hundred times the work and a thousand times the risk. Lewis is alive out there, or at least he was when he left the prison."

That was both disheartening and reassuring in equal measure. "Is there any way I'd be able to look at the security tapes from around that time? Or before, even?"

"'Fraid not. Videos are deleted every ten days. Not enough storage space. And everything even remotely related to Lewis's escape was taken by the independent commission investigating it. If you want to know how he escaped, your best chance is waiting to see what they say."

"When does that come out?"

"They think the report will be out next week and we'll know what we all did wrong. Heads are going to roll. Maybe even mine." He sounded remarkably unconcerned at the prospect.

Amaro shook his head. A week may as well have been a year under present circumstances. "Can I talk to people? Ask around?"

"If they want to talk. I can't force them."

"Thanks," Amaro said shortly, already heading towards the door.

"I knew her," Evans said suddenly, and Amaro turned.

"Not well," the man amended. "I met her a couple times when she came to interview prisoners. Seemed like a good cop. Nothing like what they're saying on the news."

"The news has it wrong." His voice was flat.

Evans nodded. "That's about what I thought. I know you don't believe it, Detective, but I'm on your side. But my hands are tied here as far as what I can do. Giving you free rein to talk to people here is about as far as my authority goes right now.

Amaro nodded slowly. "Thanks," he said again, more sincerely this time. He left the office feeling slightly reassured.

Unfortunately, the guards were less than cooperative. The specter of the independent commission's report seemed to hang over everyone's head, and the few answers he did receive were terse and free of substance. He had to resist the urge to shake them, to scream that he didn't care about their all petty violations, he was trying to save his partner's life. But he knew it wouldn't help.

The prisoners were more talkative, though not necessarily more helpful. He had to weed through the obvious lies, the falsehoods by those hoping to finagle themselves into a deal, or those who were simply bored and inclined to screw up a cop's investigation. Even so, an image of Lewis during his time in prison emerged, of an odd loner, no friends, but not a troublemaker. A nonentity lost in the shuffle of colorful personalities. No one could say much about him.

"He wasn't close with _anyone_," said one of the more helpful informants, a skinny man with thick dreadlocks. "Most people here end up with a group of some sort, 'cause if you don't you're an easy target. But he never did. Never got jumped either."

"Why not?"

The man frowned, his eyes clouded. "He was scary, man," he said finally. "Don't know what it was about him. He looked like the kind of guy who if you fought him, would just take his hits and smile, and then maybe you'd wake up a week later with your guts hanging out. No one wanted to test him."

"What did he do all day?"

"Nothing. Sometimes he'd work out, but most of the time he'd just wait. I saw him out in the exercise yard all the time, always in the same place. But he never did anything. After a while you stop paying attention."

Amaro's heart beat a little faster. "Can you show me where?"

"Yeah, if you can get me out to the yard."

Twenty minutes and a short talk with C.O. Evans later, Amaro was led to a corner of the exercise yard, past the basketball hoops to a small bench near the wall. He combed the area meticulously, looking at the bench, the bricks, the concrete, looking for any hint of something out of place.

The other man laughed at him. "Shit, you think he dug his way out with a spoon or something? Not a chance. It's not like this place is hidden. People could walk by and see him. Besides, a lot of guards were on his case when he first came. They would have noticed if he was up to something."

Amaro looked up abruptly. "Which guards?"

The man shrugged. "Dunno. Donovan and O'Brien liked to hang around this place. Can't say if they ever talked to him."

That was the closest he'd gotten to useful information so far. "Thanks," he said, getting to his feet.

As it turned out, O'Brien was patrolling in a different cellblock, but a guard named Tim Donovan had gone home sick not long after Amaro had arrived, which couldn't help but ring some alarm bells. As Murphy had noted, nothing was quite as suspicious as running.

Amaro considered staying to interview O'Brien just in case, but decided he didn't have time to hedge his bets. He managed to finagle the man's address and then he was off, speeding down the street in the fading light of the sun.

Donovan lived in a tiny bachelor's pad about an hour's drive from the prison. No one answered when he pounded on the door, there was no sudden hush of voices, no shuffling noises of a sick man coming to check the peephole.

Amaro stood at the door, frustrated. This was all the more proof that something was amiss. While there was always the off chance the man had gone to a hospital, it was more likely his failure to appear at his door was a sign that Amaro's instinct was correct. But so what if it was? This path led to a literal locked door and he had no probable cause to get in. But Olivia could be behind that door, a gun to her head, a hand over her mouth keeping her quiet.

_No,_ a clinical part of him corrected. _She wouldn't be here. Lewis wouldn't take her anywhere where the neighbors could hear her scream._

The thought finally brought home the true horror of what had happened, and he braced a hand against the doorframe, clenching his teeth until a wave of nausea passed. Even if she wasn't here, this man was his best chance of figuring out where she was. Amaro could kick down the door. Get him to talk. If Donovan didn't want to cooperate, he could persuade him. By any means necessary.

The consequences would be dire. He was about half an infraction from serious trouble already. This kind of stunt would lose him his badge, probably even lead to jail time. Even so, it might work. His fists itched to do it.

But maybe that would be playing right into Lewis's hands, what with his uncanny ability to drag others down to his level. The first time Olivia had disappeared, Amaro had tried to contact some of Lewis's former investigators, hoping for some advice or insight, and found that an unsettling number of them were gone. Not dead, but fired, resigned or demoted not long after they'd finished with his case. When pressed as to why, a few of their commanding officers had hinted at disciplinary issues, problem behaviors. Maybe Lewis knew that violence was ultimately a temptation that many were unable to resist.

The first time he'd tried to interrogate Lewis, more than a year back, the man had given him a single searching glance and before dismissing him to focus on Olivia, and Amaro had always wondered what he'd seen. A weak link, maybe? A problem cop, perhaps, one who could be fooled into thinking that this long trail of blood and horror could be ended by just one more act of brutal, lawless violence. Or possibly a coward, one who lacked the stomach to do what was necessary. What kind of man was he? Did he still believe deep down that he could fight monsters without becoming one? Or were monstrous decisions the only way to beat someone like Lewis - fight fire with fire, blood with blood? Which path would help Olivia?

He straightened slowly, staring at the door again for a very long time. Then he turned away, feeling like a coward and a traitor, a bitter taste in his throat.

_I'm sorry_, he thought to Olivia. _If I'm going to help you, I need to do it the right way. Just hold on a few more hours. Please_.

He headed back into the evening, head down, shoulders hunched. Behind him, in a darkened living room, someone let out a quiet sigh of relief.


	13. Chapter 13

13.

Lewis and Olivia both froze for a moment, listening to the tinny electronic ringtone echo off the walls. Then Lewis got off the bed without a word, disappearing further into the house. Olivia listened to him go, too relieved at the unexpected respite to question it. She lay on the bed and tried to get a hold of herself, trying to even her breathing, stem her tears. There was a steady throbbing agony from between her legs that spiked every time she moved, and she wondered how bad the damage was. Just thinking about it made her gorge rise, and she struggled to fight it down. If she threw up with her mouth covered, she would die, she would suffocate right here on this bed. It would be an ugly, painful death, but maybe it would be better than whatever Lewis had planned. But she couldn't let it happen.

He was wrong about her. She had a keen sense of self-preservation. Even after all that had happened, she savored each breath with the base gratitude of someone who knew it might be her last. She wanted to live. She just knew there were other things that were more important. That was something Lewis could never understand.

Slowly, her heart slowed to its normal pace and her trembling lessened, though it didn't fully go away. She could hear Lewis speaking quietly from across the house, and it crossed her mind that now would be the time to try and pull against the ropes. But she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. He'd won this round, no question, beaten her so thoroughly and completely that any thought of defiance seemed like a cruel joke. The best she'd ever done against him was to fight him to a draw, and that hardly seemed worth all of this. Better just to lie here and accept what was coming, rather than aggravate him further.

_If that's what you really think_, some part of her whispered, _then it's over. You may as well ask him to slit your throat when he comes back, because you've already lost everything that matters._

Olivia shoved both thoughts away, trying to clear her mind, still the trembling in her legs. She couldn't hear Lewis's voice anymore. It felt like he had been gone for ages now, but there was no way to tell. She could only wait.

After a while she finally wondered distantly about the call. It was too much to hope that it was someone who had finally noticed the original occupant of this house had gone missing. If that were the case, Lewis would have simply thrown the phone against the wall and continued. That he was still gone now suggested that the call had been for him. But who could have made it? Lewis was the consummate loner, seeing others as nothing but weakness. Who would he trust enough to allow them to contact him?

A sudden touch on her ankle made her flinch. Lewis had returned as silently as before, and she'd been too distracted by her thoughts to notice.

"Now where were we?" he mused, as the mattress dipped near her feet again. "I think I remember."

She squeezed her eyes shut behind the blindfold, her breath catching in her lungs. Lewis leaned over her, caressing her neck with a little too much pressure as she shivered beneath his touch.

"You're finally scared, sweetheart? After all this, you finally understand what you got yourself into? It's a bad time for that. We've still got a long way to go."

He entered her again and it was every bit as agonizing as she expected, every thrust like a knife to her insides. She sobbed behind clenched teeth, feeling the ropes dig into the shredded skin at her wrists, his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise.

She realized suddenly that it was getting harder to breathe, her mouth still covered, her nose clogged from crying. She tried to calm herself, to take deep, slow breaths, but it was impossible. There wasn't enough air. She jerked within her bonds with animalistic panic, her chest tight, waves of gray swirling at the edge of her vision. Maybe this was the end, she thought distantly. She couldn't recall if that would be good or bad.

At the last moment, as her limbs were losing strength, her lungs in agony, Lewis tore the tape from her mouth, never breaking rhythm. She took a gasping, unrestricted breath, her face numb, her body shaking. Something liquid trickled at the corner of her mouth, blood or saliva, she couldn't tell.

It had been ridiculous to believe that Lewis would let her die this way, she thought after a moment, still shuddering. He'd done this too many times. Death would be no escape from this. Not for her. Not until he was done.

"Please," she whispered, not sure of why.

He caressed a scar on her stomach, a raised ridge of skin the shape of a key. "Not yet, sweetheart," he murmured back. "Not yet."

He finished and he climbed off her, pulling off her blindfold to reveal a room that had darkened in the intervening time, the walls bathed in the dull light of late sunset. Lewis said nothing, staring at her, unmoving. Perhaps he was waiting for her to ask about the phone call, so that he could have the pleasure of denying her the answer. She said nothing, staring at the ceiling. Either she was unwilling to give him the satisfaction, or she was simply too far gone to care. She didn't like to think of which answer was the more likely.

After a while, he gave a sigh of impatience, turning away.

"Looks like your guys have been busy. I just got a call from my friend the prison guard. He says a detective was sniffing around earlier, asking questions, trying to figure out how I got out. Now do you think that's desperation or are they finally getting their act together?"

Olivia blinked at him but said nothing, her heart beating harder in her chest. For the first time in hours, she started to feel something like hope.

"Doesn't matter for you, anyway," he added. "It's too late to make a difference. Just thought it was interesting, that's all."

She steeled herself, gathering what was left of her courage. "What makes you so sure he won't talk?" Her voice sounded rusty when she spoke and she swallowed, trying to ease the dryness in her throat.

Lewis shrugged. "He's lasted this long. Even back when I first got out and the pressure was a lot higher, he never said a word. It's in his own interest as much as mine."

"You don't know my team," she whispered. "They'll get it out of him. He wouldn't be calling you if he wasn't getting nervous."

"And so what if they do? He doesn't know where I am. And like I said, it's already too late for you."

She was silent for a long time. Then she looked up and spat in his face. Lewis blinked and took a step back, looking more surprised than annoyed.

"Don't bullshit me," she said. "If you wanted me here all you had to do was show up in my apartment again. Instead you spend all that time and risk setting me up. And now that it's falling apart, you pretend you don't care but I know better. They're going to figure out what you did. Everyone's going to realize how pathetic you really are, how flimsy -"

Lewis slapped her, smiling easily as his eyes glinted with a hard light. "You're that bothered by being a suspect huh? All right." He moved towards her, reaching for the rope around her wrist. "If it's really so important to you, we can fix that. I think you're going to write a letter. With my help, of course."

"I won't," she said evenly. "I'll die first."

He sighed, cracking his knuckles as he circled to the other side of the bed. "You really shouldn't say things like that."

It took a long time. But in the end, she gave in.

He sat her down at an old mahogany desk and told her exactly what to write. He watched the formation of each word with the intensity of a tiger in the grass, waiting for a misstep.

He made her rewrite the letter twice. The first time was because she shook so hard that the words were illegible. The second was because her blood had dripped onto the paper.

Afterwards, he hung her from the chain in the basement and left, the front door slamming behind him. It occurred to her that now was another chance to struggle, to try and break the chain or handcuffs without Lewis around, but she found she didn't have the strength. Her head lolled against her chest, her eyelids fluttering shut as she sank into darkness.

Some time later, she drifted painfully back into consciousness, her mind still muddled with exhaustion. Her wrists had taken her dead weight for however long she'd been out and now they screamed in agony as she shifted, trying to relieve some of the pressure. If Lewis wanted her to write another letter now, she thought, she simply wouldn't be capable.

The house was still silent. Apparently Lewis hadn't yet returned. Olivia tried to take the opportunity to try and call for help, but her voice was hoarse and weak, muffled behind her gag. She gave up, closing her eyes as she once again drifted between wakefulness and sleep.

More time passed, she had no idea how long. When she was slightly more lucid, she found herself thinking almost dispassionately about what came next. Her options were fewer now, there was no denying that. She was in no condition to take Lewis in a fight anymore, perhaps even lacked the strength to get very far if she could somehow break her bonds. Looking back, she'd had a hundred chances to fight back or escape before now. She could have gone for her gun back at the construction site, or tried harder to get out of the handcuffs in those first couple hours. Those and half a dozen more. She'd let them all slip through her fingers out of fear, to court some illusion of mercy that she and Lewis both knew would never come. And now there was only one more decision left, one last point where her choices might matter.

She could give up. Concede that he'd truly beaten her this time, release that one last shred of defiance she'd been clinging to for this long. He'd put her out of her misery if she asked for death and meant it, if only for the pleasure of watching the light die from her eyes.

And would she mean it? Her lip trembled. She was getting close to the end, one way or another. She could let go, spare herself a couple hours of agony. Or she could hang on. Draw this out as long as possible, let him extract every ounce of pain and satisfaction from her. So that -

_No one's coming to help you._

The thought came coldly and undeniably. She was truly on her own this time. There would be no SWAT team to burst through the door, no task force of detectives formed to bring Lewis down. They were looking for her, certainly, but as a murderer who'd fled the scene, not a victim of abduction. They'd go through her life, her associates, not look for Lewis. So they wouldn't find her. Maybe her team and Cassidy would realize the truth, but they were three detectives when they'd need a couple dozen cops to even make a difference. They wouldn't find her in time.

So that only left her. To live or to die.

Fear gripped her for a moment, so strongly she could barely breathe. Then it too faded, and she hung her head and cried. She cried with pain and exhaustion, and at the sheer monstrous unfairness of everything that had happened. But when her tears had dried, she lifted her head almost calmly. And she waited for Lewis to come back.


	14. Chapter 14

14.

Before Amaro had even gotten out of the building, he was on the phone with Barba, pleading with him to get a warrant for Tim Donovan's home. Barba cut him off before he could finish.

"It's too late to get a warrant for anything. All the judges have gone for the day."

"So call in a favor," Amaro said between gritted teeth.

"Unless you have a favor that involved saving a judge's firstborn child, you're not going to get a warrant for this tonight. You've got no probable cause at all – what, some murderer said the guy talked to Lewis a couple times and then he went home with a stomachache while you were there? This would be laughed out of court in the best of circumstances, never mind now."

Amaro frowned. "What do you mean, 'never mind now?'"

He heard the other man sigh over the phone. "Isn't it obvious? No one wants to touch this case with a ten foot pole, especially if they're on our side. Five detectives have died, Amaro. It's unprecedented. Benson's officially the one and only suspect. A lot of people don't believe it, but imagine if it turned out to be her after all, and they were found bending the rules to help her. The blow back would be catastrophic. Everyone's focused on covering their own asses right now. No one ever got to be in power without looking out for themselves first."

"So that's it then?" Amaro asked bitterly. "After all she's done for people, no one's going to help us?"

Barba was silent for a while. "How sure are you about this?"

"Pretty sure."

"Not sure enough to just barge in yourself?" he asked rather delicately.

"I don't think she's there. I just think the guy has some information, and I need to make him give it to me without getting arrested."

"I'll see what I can do. But it's not going to be quick."

Amaro could hear the strain in Barba's usually urbane demeanor, and that more than anything convinced him it was hopeless, there was nothing to be done. He thanked him and hung up, then dialed Murphy. He went through much the same conversation and was told to wait until morning.

Frustrated, he was tempted to go back to the apartment and kick in the door after all, but he didn't. Maybe he'd do it as a last resort, but for now he'd play by the rules. He'd never forgive himself if he destroyed his only real lead through impatience.

He went home instead, ate what dinner he could keep down. The night seemed to alternately drag painfully or barrel forward. He didn't sleep, alternating between worrying about Olivia and going over the case in his head, searching for anything else he might have missed. He finally dropped off through sheer exhaustion around 4 AM and when he awoke, the sun was high in the sky, his phone lit up with five missed calls. Three from Barba, two from Murphy.

Panicked, he called them back but neither picked up. He called Rikers as well to see if Tim Donovan had shown up, but was met with only a hold signal.

Wondering if the world had ended as he slept, he hurried to work.

The squad room was empty when he arrived but for the new temporary SVU detective, who shot him a dirty look as he entered. Murphy's office was shut, his office dark. Amaro sat down at his desk uncertainly, picking up his phone. He'd try calling Fin or Cassidy – anyone who might know what was going on.

Fin didn't answer either, and he was looking up Cassidy's number when a sheet of paper was slammed down on his desk. He jumped, his head snapping up.

One of the remaining homicide detectives – Peterson, maybe – glared down at him. "Still think that sergeant of yours is innocent?"

"What are you talking about?" he said warily.

"Tim Donovan, one of the guards at Rikers. He was found dead this morning. Suicide. They found this in his home."

Amaro's stomach dropped. He looked down at the paper. It was a crime scene photo of what looked to be a love letter, much folded and addressed to the deceased. Near the bottom was an all too familiar signature.

When Amaro was silent, the other man continued. "Fills in a few holes, doesn't it? Now here's what I think. Donovan's an older guy. Divorced for ten years now. Short, pudgy, not good with the ladies. But suddenly he meets a beautiful woman who seems to be interested in him and he's head over heels. And when she asks for a big favor with one of the criminals – hell, he doesn't even think twice. But this story always ends the same way, doesn't it? She runs off with the other guy and he's left holding the bag."

He was too stunned at the letter to even argue. "Any chance it was a murder made to look like suicide?"

"Not a one. He hanged himself. No sign of a struggle. Neighbors didn't hear anything. He could have just reached up and loosened the rope if he wanted, but he didn't. He even left a note. You know what it said?"

He shook his head.

"Just one line. 'I can't live with what I've done.' I can understand that one. He let one cop killer talk him into letting another escape. That's got to be some guilt."

Amaro's head was pounding. "It's a setup. It has to be."

Peterson pushed himself back from the desk, shaking his head in disgust. "That's all you guys ever say, isn't it? Everything's a setup. I've got some advice for you. If you want to stay a detective, you better stop ignoring the evidence."

With that he stalked off, leaving Amaro sitting at the desk, staring at the letter.

He spent a while looking for anything unusual, for some hidden code, perhaps darkened letters that formed an address or even a city. Finally he had to conclude that if there was a code, it was too subtle for him. Even so, he couldn't put it aside, half-hoping an answer would pop out in front of him.

It didn't sound like her, he thought after a while, having reread it for the umpteenth time. It was too crude and explicit for something that came from Olivia, the coarse words making an ugly contrast with her graceful script. Then again, he'd never seen her write anything but work emails and case reports. Plenty of people were different in private. He supposed he could ask Cassidy, but that would require talking to Cassidy about this and he wasn't up to that right now.

After all these years of working with Olivia, he realized now that he'd really only ever seen her professional face. Even at work parties or at the bar or dinner after a hard case, she never fully let her guard down for anyone. The only exception was the time he'd walked into a beach house in Long Island to find her hunched in a corner, a haunted look in her eye, half-hysterical and drugged out of her mind. And that was the kind of experience that changed people in a big way. But enough to do this?

Maybe Homicide was right and he was wrong. Blind faith was a bad trait in anyone, especially a detective. Homicide's unwavering belief in Lieutenant Garrett's hunch about Olivia was half the reason for this mess now, and maybe he'd been doing the same thing. After all, no one could be sure they truly understood anyone else. The hundreds murdered by their supposed loved ones each year were testament enough to that. And it was undeniable that Olivia had been acting differently after she'd returned from her four day ordeal. She was quicker to draw a weapon, looked at suspects with a hardness that hadn't been there before. And then there had been that mysterious evening excursion on the night of Garrett's death. All sorts of little things that didn't add up. Enough to give the accusations against her a sheen of plausibility.

Amaro found that he hoped everyone else was right after all – that she'd killed those detectives and run off – because the alternative would be monstrous. It would mean the organization to which she'd devoted her life had turned on her the moment she needed them the most. They'd declared her an outlaw, an enemy to be hunted down. And in the meantime…

He looked back down at the letter, looking so familiar and so wrong.

_How much did he hurt you to make you do this?_

He didn't want to know.

Lieutenant Murphy chose that moment to finally return. He glanced at the letter over Amaro's shoulder and shook his head. "So you heard, huh?"

Amaro resisted the urge to crumple the paper in his fist. "It's Lewis again. He's framing her."

Murphy was shaking his head. "If it's a frame job, it's a damn good one. I saw the case report. They found what they think is her hair on his bed. They found ash in his garbage can too, like he burned other letters to protect her. The one you're looking at had slid under his dresser. It was only luck that the crime scene techs noticed it."

"If they hadn't found it, we would have," he said, frustrated. "I was at the prison yesterday. He didn't kill himself out of guilt, he did it because he knew we were catching up."

"And then the letter and her hair magically showed up at his place before he killed himself right on cue. I'll admit Lewis is good. But no one's this good."

Amaro stared at his desk, gritting his teeth, unable to make him understand the sheer psychological hold Lewis could have on people. Murphy hadn't been at the trial, hadn't seen Lewis play the jury with ease, hadn't seen him rattle even Olivia. Convincing a man on edge to kill himself would be well within his power. He just couldn't prove it.

"Look on the bright side," Murphy said, as he headed towards his office.

"What bright side?" Amaro said bitterly.

"In a way, you got what you wanted. They're hunting Lewis again. They held the press conference an hour ago."

Amaro frowned for a moment, watching the door close behind him. And then enlightenment hit, like the first drop of rain in a summer storm.


	15. Chapter 15

15.

For Olivia, the rest of the night passed endlessly. She heard Lewis come back not long after she awoke, the front door creaking open somewhere above her. She tensed, waiting for the sound of footsteps descending down the wooden stairs, but there was nothing. Maybe even Lewis needed to rest sometime, or maybe he was planning something worse for her up there. Either way, she didn't think too hard about it. Every moment away from him was something to be savored.

When Lewis did return, it was with the creaking of a door, a sliver of light in the pitch-black basement. She steeled herself, refusing to let her knees tremble as he approached. He looked her up and down with his usual satisfaction, caressing a bruise that was forming on her cheek before removing her gag.

"It's done," he said cheerfully. "Didn't take as long as I expected. But I figured you could use the break. You're going to need your strength for today."

She said nothing, looking at him steadily. After a moment, he shrugged, reaching up to the chain above her head and releasing her hands. She was prepared this time and managed not to fall, bracing her legs as they wobbled beneath her when they took her full weight. Her hands didn't hurt as much this time as she lowered them, something she failed to find reassuring. The end of pain often signaled the beginning of serious damage. She tried to flex her unbroken fingers and they barely responded, but the attempt at movement brought a choppy stutter of anguish. She gritted her teeth.

Lewis made no move to bind her this time, merely nodding towards the stairway.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go back upstairs."

She stared at him. This was another one of his tests, she knew, one where failure would lead to all the more vicious treatment, but passing would cost her just a little more of herself. It was what Lewis liked, making her choose between bad and worse, making her complicit in her own torture.

Taking a breath, she limped forward as slowly as she could, the pain between her legs barely lessened in the hours that had passed. Lewis fell into step behind her, shoving his gun against her back hard enough that she stumbled.

"I know you can do better than that."

She wasn't sure she could, but she tried to speed up anyway, wanting to deny him an excuse for violence for as long as possible. The effort seemed to appease him, and he lowered the weapon, caressing the nape of her neck instead. She managed not to flinch, but only because she was too tired

"I'm curious," he said, as they headed up the stairs, "whether you'll live longer or your reputation will. They should have found his body by now. The letter might take a little longer. It's best to be subtle. And then it might take them a while to figure out how it matters. But they will, sooner or later. How long do you think it'll take you to start begging me to end things while you still have something left?"

Olivia didn't respond.

"I always wondered what you made of all this. Because I know you must have made the news before. Mostly good things, I imagine. You cracked a big case, helped a victim... After a lifetime of that, it's funny to think you'll be remembered for this, isn't it? No one's ever going to say your name without thinking of mine. Does it bother you that after all the good you've done, your life is going to be reduced to me?"

They were almost at the bedroom, and she tried to slow down. "You're flattering yourself," she said between gritted teeth.

That earned her another hard shove forward.

"I'm not sure I am, sweetheart. People always remember the bad over the good. Even before this, kidnap and torture made for a much better story than you simply doing your job, however good you might have been. And what about now? All these deaths, our names together again on the news -"

She made her move then, throwing her head back so that it cracked against his jaw, jabbing an elbow into his stomach with all her remaining strength. He let out a grunt of surprise as she pulled away from him and ran, stumbling towards the door. After a few seconds she heard him growl furiously behind her, his footsteps pounding against the ground, but she refused to let herself look back.

She ran past broken furniture and yellowed wallpaper, feeling like she was moving underwater, every step far too slow. Pain had been subsumed by adrenaline, but she was scraping her last dregs of energy, incapable of pushing herself as hard as she wanted. Even so, the front door loomed ahead, growing closer with agonizing deliberation. If she could get outside even for a moment, it would be enough to call for help, for someone to see.

Her fingers brushed the doorknob - and slipped.

Lewis caught up to her then, grabbing her and slamming her against the door. She heard rather than felt the bones in her arm snap against the door frame and it sounded like the crack of a gunshot, the slamming of a window. It sounded like the signing of her death warrant, and she knew it was over. Any real chance of escape had gone up in smoke.

He slammed her into the door again and then let her drop. She crumpled to the ground and only then did she feel the pain, radiating from her arm like a small sun. She made no attempt to get up, shaking on the floor, waiting for his next move. It came as a hard boot to her side, and she cried out, curling up against the next blow.

"That was stupid," Lewis said, shaking his head. "You couldn't possibly have thought that would work."

She didn't reply, shivering, pain overwhelming her thoughts. When she finally raised her eyes she found that Lewis was still watching her, staring at her with a look bereft of humanity, of mercy or compassion. Only cold anticipation, and some incomprehensible need. Maybe he really was an empty space in the world, like he said, a hole that could never be filled. He would take from her until she had nothing left, and even that wouldn't be enough.

She'd never been so afraid.

He reached for her, grabbing her hair and yanking her back towards the stairs to the cellar. He shoved her down the steps and she instinctively tried to catch herself. Her broken arm gave way beneath her and she felt her head slam into the wooden step before she passed out.

When she opened her eyes again, he was dragging her across the ground, her body scraping against the rough concrete. He pulled her past the chain she'd hung from before, further into the darkened room. When they reached the far wall, he grabbed her wrists roughly, and the pain in her arm sent her back into nothingness. When she came to, lifting her head, her hands were cuffed above her again. But she was on her knees this time, the chain looped over a metal support of a wall shelf. She stared at the unfinished wooden paneling in front of her face for a few moments, her senses still reeling.

There was a noise behind her and she tried to turn. She caught a brief glimpse of metal before something came down hard on her back, knocking into the wall before her and leaving a fiery trail of pain in its wake. She coughed, too stunned to scream.

"Try not to pass out again," Lewis said diffidently. "That arm looks like it won't take much more weight."

He hit her again and she flinched, her body jerking away, jolting her broken bones. A wave of gray swept her vision but she clung to consciousness against her will. Three more times and she was screaming, crying out with a noise that ripped at her vocal chords. She could feel blood running down her back, dripping onto her legs, splashing against the floor.

He reached around her head to cover her mouth, then pinched her nose shut as well. Her screams cut off suddenly, her eyes widening. In the sudden silence, he leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

"Be quiet," he said flatly. "Or I'll gag you."

He waited to release her until she was nearly out of air, her struggles against him panicked and jerky. Finally he removed his hand and stood up. She had time for two desperate, grateful breaths before another blow came down, knocking the air from her lungs.

She tried to obey him - she really did - but there was a level of pain past which screaming was merely a physiological response. She reached it by the time sixth strike came down and another cry tore out of her throat, harsh and wretched.

Lewis sighed and stood up, leaving her kneeling shuddering on the floor, pulling uselessly at her bonds.

"Serves me right for leaving the tape upstairs, huh? I guess... There we go." He came back with a large cloth and shoved it unceremoniously into her mouth. It smelled like dust and she choked, nearly inhaling it with one of her desperate gasping breaths

To her mind, her cries didn't seem much quieter afterwards, but Lewis seemed satisfied. After a while, it didn't matter anyway. Her senses were overloading, her eyes starting to close, her head lolling against her chest. After what seemed like an age, Lewis finally stopped. There was the sound of steel and leather hitting the floor, and then her hands were released. She would have simply crumpled to the ground but Lewis caught her, easing her to the floor face down. Flecks of blood dotted the dirty concrete before her eyes and she stared at them, uncomprehending.

Lewis knelt over her with agonizing slowness, his knees straddling her thighs. He ran a hand gently downwards and the sweat of his skin stung her wounded back. She cried out weakly, unable to even struggle away.

He laughed. "Oh sweetheart, that's not the part of this that's going to hurt."

She could feel him pressing into her, hot against her skin. The cloth was still in her mouth and she couldn't even beg him for mercy, for some hint of respite. She let out a pleading whimper instead, and she could hear his breath quicken in excitement. She was giving him everything he wanted, helpless to hold anything back anymore.

When he entered her it was with no less violence than what came before, but she lacked the strength to scream now. She cried instead, tears falling to the ground as he tore inside her, her body moving against the floor with the force of his thrusts. The world seemed to fade in and out like a badly tuned radio, agony tethering her to reality even as it pushed her away. Some perverse part of her still tried to get away, to crawl out from underneath him with shaking limbs. He only pushed her down and went harder and she finally managed a small moan, clenching her teeth over the cloth.

Lewis leaned over her. "You're going to die here," he whispered, his voice low and intent. "And when you do, the last thing you'll ever feel is going to be me inside of you."

Olivia let her eyes close, resting her head on the ground.

_I know._


	16. Chapter 16

16.

Amaro spent the next part of the morning trying to convince Murphy to give him access to the new influx of tips about Lewis that had followed the press conference, which Murphy staunchly refused.

"It's not something I can do," he said firmly. "The Lewis case is Homicide and Major Case's now, and they specifically requested that SVU be excluded."

"Why?" Amaro almost snarled.

"Why do you think? Because you worked with one of the suspects. They don't want to risk –"

"We worked with Olivia, not with Lewis," he said incredulously. "No one ever wanted to find Lewis more than us."

"And they just found pretty strong evidence Olivia was helping him. Look, I don't like this any more than you, but I can understand their reasoning. You'd never let a suspect's friends or family see the evidence in an active investigation. Same logic applies here."

"With Olivia gone, I know Lewis better than anyone here. I can find him."

"I'm telling you it's not going to happen."

"It needs to anyway."

Murphy sighed. "You're about to do something rash, I can tell. It's a bad idea. Interfering with an investigation is going to get you fired at best, even if you do find something useful. And what good do you think this is going to do? We had three months of tips. None of them ever panned out, and that was with the manpower to check them. How much do you think you'll find by yourself, in a couple hours or days?"

"It doesn't matter. I have to try."

"Would Benson want you to throw your life away over a ridiculous long shot?"

"You don't understand," Amaro said almost evenly. "I'm her partner. Maybe you've forgotten what that's like, working on your own as long as you did, but I'll tell you how it is. It means you get to know each other better than you know yourself. It means you watch out for each other. It means I have her back and she has mine. I'd die for her and she'd do the same for me. Nothing more, nothing less. Now she's out there somewhere being tortured and God knows what, because she was brave enough to stand up when anyone else would have backed down. I'm going to find her even if I have to burn this whole place down to do it. Now are you going to help me, or are you going to get out of my way?"

Murphy said nothing, staring hard at him for a long time.

Fifteen minutes later, Amaro strolled into Homicide's squad room with a forced air of casualness. The search for Olivia and Lewis was headquartered over at Major Case, so this place was nearly deserted. Murphy had lured away the last detective in the room for a chat - (_deniability,_ Murphy had emphasized. If Amaro was caught, he would be on his own) – but he only had five minutes at most. He glanced about for Detective Fletcher's desk and found it almost immediately, right in middle of the room, probably untouched since he'd been killed. He hurried over and began rifling through the drawers.

The errand at hand was Murphy's idea, and was predicated on two basic assumptions. The first was that despite HR's advice to never write down passwords, Fletcher had been a man past sixty, and would likely have written down a reminder. The second was that the NYPD was a massive, slow bureaucracy, which was unlikely to have taken Fletcher out of the system in the forty or so hours since his death. With Fletcher's account, Amaro would have all the access of any homicide detective, including this newest investigation.

It was a good plan. It didn't make it any less unsettling to be stealing from a dead man's desk. Of all the ways he could have destroyed his career, this had to be one of the strangest. Regardless of whether the information panned out, this would be the end of his time with the NYPD. Everything done on their computers were logged. Someone was bound to eventually notice that a detective was apparently accessing his account despite being on a slab in the morgue. There would be no more warnings, no more suspensions, not with Amaro's record. This would be his third strike, his final straw.

He'd wanted to be a police officer since he was a boy but now he was throwing it away, striking the final blow with cold deliberation. Much of his enthusiasm for the job had already worn away, bright idealism corroding into bitter determination, but a part of him still grieved this ending, the closing of this chapter in his life. He had no time to mourn. If it helped Olivia, it would be more than a fair exchange.

Deep within the desk, he found a bright yellow post-it note full of crossed out nonsense words and he snatched it, heading back to SVU with all deliberate speed.

Five minutes later, he was logged onto his own computer as Bill Fletcher, scrolling through a massive file of new tips about Lewis. Hundreds upon hundreds of potential sightings were laid out as dots on a map, as chaotic and meaningless as a swarm of ants around fallen breadcrumbs. Making any kind of sense of this would take a whole team of cops and probably some assistants.

Taking a breath, Amaro got to work.

Straight off, he eliminated any sightings that claimed to see Lewis and Olivia together, any that claimed to have seen him in the last few hours, and any areas he knew would be too densely populated for Lewis's purposes. After that, the guesswork got trickier.

It all came down to time, he thought, staring at the dots. Lewis was good, but he wasn't inhuman. He still needed to eat and sleep, and he still needed to travel between places. He must have followed both Olivia and Amanda after his escape from prison, to find their homes, learn their habits. But to have avoided being caught so long he must have had a place to stay – sleeping out in public was a sure way to catch the attention of law enforcement. There was also the issue of the prison guard. How long would Lewis have been willing to leave Olivia alone for that particular errand? How long did it take to convince a man to kill himself?

There were too many questions without solid answers, so Amaro forced himself to guess. He drew circles around the two main points – Olivia's apartment building and the guard's house, giving them a radius of about three hours travel time. The overlap covered a depressingly large area, and he still wasn't sure it was enough. But it was a start.

He traced a finger to the first cluster of tips, picked up the phone, and began making calls.

The vast majority of tips to any hotline were either called in by complete lunatics or simply too vague to be helpful. Amaro worked his way through followups for about a hundred of these to no avail, watching the hours tick by with increasing anxiety. Even worse were the tips that were plausible and fitting, but simply not detailed enough for him to be sure. After each of these calls, he would agonize for a moment after hanging up, wondering if it would be worth the time to go check it out in person. Each time, he would decide it wasn't quite good enough.

Mid-afternoon, long after he'd lost track of how many people he'd spoken to, a young woman answered the phone after about seven rings, right as Amaro was about to hang up.

"Hello?"

Amaro cleared his throat, caught off guard. "This is Detective Amaro from the NYPD. You called our tip line earlier today saying you'd seen William Lewis?"

"Oh yeah. At least I think I saw him."

"Can you describe where?"

"Usually at night, when I'm heading home. I work swing shift, you know? So I don't get home until midnight. Sometimes I'd see him waiting next to me at that red light that takes forever to change." She paused, sounding disgruntled. "I actually thought he was pretty cute you know? This neighborhood is filled with old people and drug dealers. I got all excited that there was someone closer to my age here who didn't look like a total creep. Shows what I know, right?"

Amaro's heart beat faster. This was a trifecta of fitting details - location, description and timing. It seemed like his best tip so far, but was it enough?

"Do you remember anything else about him?"

"Um… He was tall. His head almost touched the roof of his car. Oh, and he drove this awful brown boxy thing. That's the other reason I remembered him. I thought he'd be more of a sports car guy, or at least something that wasn't so ugly. It was such an old lady car, you know?"

That was enough to convince him to check it out. "Do you know where he lives?"

"No. He turns left when I keep going. But it's probably not far from my house. There's nothing else out here."

"Right. Can you tell me where exactly he turns?"

She told him and he wrote it down, thanking her before hanging up. He was tempted to rush out the door to the house but stopped himself. Lewis had shown himself willing and completely able to kill cops who met him unprepared. Charging in half-cocked would be tantamount to suicide. He'd need backup for this, and he couldn't get it through official channels.

Fin was gone from his desk, and he still didn't answer his phone when called. While Murphy seemed well-meaning enough, Amaro didn't quite trust him enough for something like this.

Which, he thought with some resignation, left him with only one option.

He stood up and headed decisively towards the elevator, steeling himself for what might come. One way or another, this would be the end.

* * *

He tortured her until she stopped screaming, until her pleas for mercy dwindled into miserable whimpers. And even then he continued, hurting her until she lay sprawled senseless on the ground, trembling even in unconsciousness. Only then did Lewis stop to take stock, taking a step back to consider his handiwork.

He'd dreamed of this from the moment he set eyes on her, dreamed of pinning her down and claiming her, stripping away everything she was until only he was left. The setback at the beach house had been unfortunate, but it had given him more time to plan, to make sure he did things right this time. Looking at her now, crumpled and bleeding on the floor, no one could claim this was anything but total victory.

But still, something didn't feel quite right.

At his feet, Olivia moaned and shifted slightly, and he prodded her with his boot. "Guess what sweetheart," he said lightly. "You survived. We're going back upstairs. Aren't you glad?"

She didn't stir, even when he prodded her again, harder this time. He shrugged, cuffing her wrists behind her again, mostly out of spite. Then he grabbed her beneath her arms and dragged her towards the door. Her dead weight thumped against the stairs as he pulled her upwards. That finally seemed to make an impression, and she gasped, shifting in his grip. He grinned.

"There we go. I knew you were still in there."

She didn't respond, her eyes still closed. She was bleeding from her back and between her legs, leaving drops and smears of crimson on the hardwood floor.

They finally reached the bedroom and he threw her on the ground, circling around her.

"Well, sweetheart, here we are again. Tell you what, if you can make it onto the bed by yourself, I'll give you a break. How about that?"

Her eyes fluttered open briefly to stare up at him, and then the bed. Then she closed them again, her right cheek resting against the ground.

"Guess not."

He raped her again on the floor but even then she barely responded, cringing weakly away and whimpering a little, but not much else. Lewis sat back on his haunches, disappointed. Even Olivia had her limits, he supposed. If she was this far gone, most of the fun was over. Half the point was seeing her reaction. And he'd been here too long already. There was always the off chance of a cop getting lucky, a neighbor noticing something amiss. Better to move on while he had the chance.

"It's been fun," he said, standing up. "But all things end sometime. And I had a great time. Didn't you?"

For a moment, there was no response. Then, slowly, painfully, she raised her head. But she wasn't looking at him. Her eyes were unfocused, as though she was straining to hear something. He frowned, tilting his head to listen as well. In the far distance, there was the faintest scream of sirens. He felt a twinge of unease before pushing it away.

"Don't get your hopes up, sweetheart. There are plenty of sirens. I doubt it's for you."

"No," she whispered. "But soon enough they'll be for you."

He opened his mouth to reply. Then he frowned, furrowing his brow. Suddenly, he turned on his heel, striding towards the ancient television set. It opened to a 24 hour news program. On one side of the screen an anchor rattled off a statement in practiced tones. On the other side, his own mug shot smiled back at him. Three other channels showed the same.

He turned back to Olivia, who was watching him closely. The wounded, terrified creature he'd tormented for the last two days had disappeared, replaced with the woman who'd stared him down so coolly in the interrogation room all those months ago. There was triumph in her eyes.

"You wanted to write that letter," he said slowly. "You wanted me to make everyone think that you broke me out of jail."

"And now your face is back in the news. They'll find you. People will have seen you around, remembered you. They just needed the reminder. You could have gotten away if you'd run again. But you spent that time here with me instead. Every nosy grandmother is going to call your name into the tip line, every patrol cop is going to be watching for your face. It's too late to run. It won't be long until they find you."

He frowned. "But you'll never clear your name now. They'll never believe you weren't involved with me, with the murders."

She bared her teeth at him. "All our time together, and it's like you don't even know me at all. Because after all this, you still believed that after all that happened I'd still care what people _think_. You can play your mind games, you can kill me, destroy my reputation, do whatever you always do to convince yourself you're on top. It doesn't matter. You've lost, Lewis. I'm the last person you'll ever hurt. They're hunting you now, and you're dead. They're going to pump you so full of lead that they'll have to bury you in pieces."

He snarled, furiously kicking out at her prone form. She cried out the first couple times, then lay still, nearly unconscious or perhaps simply too weak to protest any longer. He drew back his foot for one final kick that would shatter her ribs, make her die choking on her own blood - and stopped.

Suddenly he was laughing, the sound echoing throughout the empty house. She turned her head slowly towards him, to watch him through pain-glazed eyes.

"Oh, you're good," he said admiringly. "You're very good. I don't know how I keep underestimating you."

He knelt down and kissed her exuberantly, tasting the blood on her unresisting lips. Then he straightened, adjusting his clothes.

"For the record," he added, "I hope you survive."

Then he left her there to bleed on the floor, her breath coming in small and painful gasps. A minute later, the front door slammed shut one final time.


	17. Chapter 17

17.

In the soft light of late afternoon, Amaro barreled down the highway as fast as he dared, lights on, sirens blaring. Every so often he would swerve past a car that hadn't moved aside fast enough, his tires screeching against the road. Cassidy sat beside him, staring straight ahead, knuckles clenched whitely against the car seat.

"This is crazy," the other man was saying for what must have been the sixth time, and Amaro resisted the urge to reach over and throttle him. "You're going to get us both killed. Who do you think that's going to help?"

"We're running out of time," he replied flatly. "Every second we waste is another second she's with him. It's coming up on two days now. Who knows when he's going to decide that he's had enough?"

They screeched past another corner and Cassidy clenched his teeth. "So call the local PD."

"They're going to show up with full sirens and SWAT and spook him into killing her. Lewis only plays along if he thinks he has an out."

Cassidy gave him a sidelong glance. "That's not all, is it?"

Amaro didn't answer. After all that happened, he didn't trust the people who should have been on his side anymore. He didn't trust the other detectives or the brass or patrol. He didn't even trust Cassidy when it came down to it, but things had gotten to the point where he didn't have much choice in allies.

A few blocks from the address he'd been given, he turned off the siren. He slowed the car a little, scanning the houses intently for cracked latches, an overgrown lawn. Anything that suggested the house's true occupant hadn't been around for a while. Further along the street, another car sidled towards them. It was a brown station wagon, a junker of a vehicle, going exactly the speed limit. The driver was dark-haired and tall, his head almost touching the roof of the small interior.

Amaro didn't stop to think. He jammed down the gas pedal, twisting the steering wheel as he sped straight towards the other car.

"What the fuck," Cassidy screamed, but Amaro barely heard, his vision tunneled, blood pounding in his ears. The other driver tried to swerve but it was too late. The vehicles slammed into each other with a deafening crunch of metal and the world seemed to rock on its axis.

He found in that moment that no matter how deliberately you crashed a car, it was impossible to fully brace yourself for three thousand pounds of speeding metal coming to a screeching halt. His head whiplashed, his face hitting the airbag before he was slammed back into the seat. He sat there for a moment, dazed, as Cassidy groaned beside him. Then he groped for his seat belt, stumbling out of the SUV. His first steps outside were unsteady but he regained his equilibrium before he reached the other car, which lay crumpled and smoking on the sidewalk. He pulled open the driver side door with some difficulty, then dragged the man out with one hand, pointing the gun at his head with the other.

It _was_ Lewis. He hadn't been wrong. The man had hit his forehead on something in the crash and blood was streaming down his face, but he grinned up at Amaro from the ground, unflappable as ever.

"Look like you guys finally caught up," he said. "You weren't as useless as last time, I'll give you that."

"You – " Amaro snarled, aiming his gun.

Lewis sighed. "You shouldn't wave that around. Someone might get hurt. Besides, it'd be a bad idea to shoot. You still need me."

Amaro let out a harsh bark of laughter. "I don't think so. We know she's nearby."

"Hmm, but that's not exactly 'we know where she is,' is it? You might want to hurry. Last I checked she was barely hanging on. It'd be tragic if you missed your last chance to help her because you couldn't control your temper. And even if you find her…" His grin grew to positively shark-like proportions. "Seems like she's gotten into a bit of trouble lately. All these murder accusations flying around. It's the kind of thing that doesn't really go away. Not without someone to testify about how she was set up."

"They won't believe she did it. We already got you here. Alive or dead, everyone's going to realize it was you all along."

"Hope you're sure about that. Me, I've found people are always ready to believe the worst. After all, I seem to recall a certain lawyer of mine, back in Maryland. She got all charges dismissed against me. Apparently got involved with me afterwards. And I killed her. But it served her right, didn't it? She should have seen it coming. And maybe you read the file and wondered how someone so smart and educated and independent could fall for a monster like me, but you believed it anyway, didn't you?"

All the blood drained from Amaro's face.

"He's bullshitting you." This was Cassidy. He had limped up from behind them, holding his ribs. A bruise was forming on the side of his temple. "He'd never say anything that would help her. Not a chance."

Lewis shrugged guilelessly. "Why wouldn't I? Destroying her reputation was fun, but it's already served its purpose. If she goes to jail, she'll be unreachable. Outside – well, we can always have round three."

Amaro growled, raising the gun again, and Lewis held up his hands.

"Here. Sign of good faith." He rattled off an address. "Go to the end of the block and another half block to the left. She'll be there. If you hurry, she might even be alive."

The two detectives exchanged glances. Cassidy took a step, then winced.

"You go. The car is totaled and I'm not up to running right now. I'll watch him."

Amaro nodded, already moving. "Call an ambulance," he called behind him, then sprinted forward with all his strength.

* * *

Cassidy watched the other man run off, disappearing down the block. He called the ambulance as he did, one hand on the phone, the other pointing the gun at Lewis. He didn't like the way the other man was staring him as he talked, that dark fixed gaze. Cassidy's right arm and ribs were in agony from when he'd slammed into the car door in the crash. If Lewis decided he wanted a fight, things would get ugly.

They were in a run-down residential neighborhood, oddly quiet for this time of day. No one had come out to gawk at the cars laying crumpled on the asphalt or the armed men running down the street. There was no distant sound of children playing on the overgrown lawns, teenagers blasting music from their bedrooms. The only noises were the shrieking of the sparrows lining the power wires and the hiss of steam from the crumpled cars.

"Hey," Lewis said abruptly, his eyes bright. "I know you. You're that useless cop boyfriend of hers."

Cassidy ignored him, scanning the horizon for any hint of vehicles or sirens.

"Yeah," he continued conversationally. "I saw you at the trial. No offense, but she didn't look that into you. No chemistry at all. And when the sociopath can tell it's bad, you know you're just kidding yourself."

"Ask me if I care what you think," he said, not taking his eyes off the road.

Lewis shrugged. "Just found it interesting." He lowered his voice. "Because all things considered, I'm pretty sure she did things for me that she's never dreamed of doing for you. Oh, she was all coy about it at first. But she was begging for it by the end."

Cassidy stared hard at nothing, trying to tune him out. But Lewis's voice seemed to penetrate his skull, sending sharp spikes of hatred through his brain.

"Come on, don't be mad. I think we're past petty jealousies at this point. We can talk it out while we wait. Swap stories. Do you want to know how it felt for me to fuck her? How she sounded, how she moved... I'm sure you know she's a screamer."

Cassidy strode forward, the pain in his arm all but forgotten. He shoved the gun against Lewis's forehead. "Shut up," he snarled. "Shut up or I swear to God I will end you right here."

Lewis didn't even look at the weapon, his eyes fixed on Cassidy's, speaking feverishly fast, his grin never leaving his face. "Because if you're as boring as you look, you don't even know the best parts about it. How it felt to hold her down as she fought and cried. The way her voice caught when she begged me for mercy. That dead look in her eyes when she knew there was nothing she could do to stop me. The - "

A single gunshot sounded, echoing off the sidewalks and worn stucco. A cloud of sparrows fluttered into the air, scattering into the sky.

And then there was silence.

* * *

Nick Amaro ran like the devil was at his heels, trying not to think about what lay ahead. If he'd squandered Olivia's final few precious minutes arguing with Lewis, he'd never forgive himself. But even if she was alive, what state would he find her in? How much damage could Lewis have done in all this time that he would be willing to leave her behind?

He put the questions out of his mind and ran even faster.

The house was old and showing signs of long neglect, with slightly peeling paint, the lawn and garden overgrown. He hurried up the walkway and kicked the door with a single movement. It splintered on its hinges. Inside, the house was completely silent, no hint of movement, no signs that anyone was there.

"Olivia?" He called out her name but there was no response.

He drew his gun and headed further into the house. The living room was clear, as was the kitchen, but there was a smeared trail of blood leading from a staircase down the hall. He swallowed hard, hurrying forward.

He followed the trail to the last bedroom on the hall, bracing himself for what came. Even so, nothing could have prepared him. She was laying sprawled on the ground, her hands still bound behind her, her left forearm at an odd angle. She was largely unclothed, the few torn scraps of cloth still clinging to her form somehow emphasizing the damage. She was bruised and bloodied from head to toe, the wounds on her back and side only half clotted and particularly vicious. But worst of all was how still she was laying - no hint of movement or breath.

Amaro couldn't help it. He froze in the doorway, unable to move forward.

"Liv?" He said it uncertainly, his heart pounding in his chest.

For a few seconds there was no response. Then her eyes fluttered open, meeting his with painful lucidity.

"Nick," she whispered.

Relief flooded his chest in a warm wave, and he stumbled forward, dropping to his knees by her side, pulling at his suit coat and reaching for his handcuff keys.

"It's me. I've got you. You're going to be okay."

She shook her head, every movement an effort. "Did you get him?"

He could barely speak. "We got him."

Olivia nodded slowly, her shoulders seeming to relax a fraction.

He took her hand as gently as he could. "The ambulance is coming, Liv. It's going to be okay."

Her fingers twitched in his. "Don't leave me here alone," she said, her voice cracking.

Amaro found he was crying as well. "I won't."

He sat with her until the ambulance came, until he heard the sirens outside the house, the sound of many boots walking across the hardwood floor. He didn't let go of her hand until the paramedics reached the room, asking him to move aside. He assured her again that she'd be all right, that help was here, but this time she didn't respond.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: So believe it or not, this is the last chapter, which I realize has all the abruptness of a train going off a cliff. But I guess I specialize in endings that annoy people. For those of you who made it through with me, I really do appreciate you keeping on, and thanks as ever for reading.

18.

In a mid-sized hospital miles from home, Amaro sat alone in a yellowed waiting room, his fists clenched in his lap. The room smelled like disinfectant and every so often a nurse would come by and give him a nervous look, but he didn't care. His eyes were fixed on a double door down the hallway, staring at it with a painful intensity.

Finally the doors opened and Amaro jumped to his feet. A doctor walked out, looking tired and anxious.

"We've finished the surgery –" she began, but Amaro interrupted her.

"What are her chances?"

She was wearing the practiced look of neutrality that cops and doctors used when the news was bad but they didn't want to let on.

"Decent," she said, after a long hesitation. "We'll have a better picture in a couple hours."

He nodded, deciding not to push. "Can I sit with her?"

She'd already turned away. "Sure."

A nurse led him down the hall to a smaller room on the right. Olivia lay in the bed, drawn and still, dwarfed by mountains of medical equipment. Her face was empty. The only sounds in the room were the buzz of machinery and the beeping of the heart monitor. Amaro stared at her for several moments, unable to process the sight.

"Looks like he really worked her over." The voice came from behind him and he jumped. Detective Peterson had walked through the door and was looking at Olivia, his expression inscrutable.

"Yeah," Amaro said cautiously. He was uncertain what the man's presence meant, and he didn't want a fight if he could avoid it.

"Do they think she'll make it?"

He took a breath. "They're not sure."

The other man shifted, rubbing at his moustache. "Hell of a thing to happen to anyone. Still, you know what they say. Lie with dogs, you get fleas."

It took Amaro a second to process the words. Then he whirled, his fists clenched. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? After all that happened, how can you still think what happened was her fault?"

"I think it's pretty clear what happened. She fell for Lewis and he turned on her, just like he did all the other women who helped him. God knows, no one deserves this, but you'd think she of all people would have known better."

Amaro's fury was so great that for a moment he couldn't speak. "Get out," he said between clenched teeth. "Get out before I throw you out on your ass."

Peterson didn't protest, turning on his heels. "We'll be back to interview her if she wakes up," he said, then disappeared out the door, nodding coolly to Murphy as he entered.

Amaro didn't bother to greet the other man, turning back at Olivia with furious tears in his eyes. "How do they still believe it?" he asked bitterly. "How can they still blame her?"

"They're tired and they're angry," Murphy said, coming to stand by Amaro. "They're grieving the loss of their colleagues and don't want to think they had a hand in their deaths. They want someone to blame so they can absolve themselves. They'll come around. Or not. You've got to admit, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence against her. Without Lewis to corroborate, people are always going to question it."

"He's a murderer and a pathological liar. Why would what he says matter?"

"It would be more information, more things that could be proved or disproved. Another story to compare to Olivia's – either to support it or make it sound better in comparison. As it stands, he's been murdered by Olivia's boyfriend. See how that might look bad?"

Amaro looked away. "Where is Cassidy, anyway?"

He'd caught only a glimpse of Cassidy through the window of Olivia's ambulance as it passed. He'd been sitting as though frozen on the curb next to Lewis's still form. Cops and medics swirled around him, but he stayed unmoving, his eyes dazed. All of Amaro's remaining antipathy for the man had evaporated in that moment in a silent rush. Their feud had seemed so pointless in retrospect, so small in the face of all that had happened. And he couldn't blame him for pulling the trigger, not when he had been so close to doing the same thing. Even so, it had clearly been a mistake, it had been what Lewis had been aiming for from the moment he'd been dragged out of the car. He'd spent his death the worst way he could manage, causing just one more bit of destruction.

Murphy raised his eyebrows. "He's in jail tonight. That's what happens when you murder a guy. He'll have a bail hearing in the morning."

Fury reared back up in his chest. "For shooting Lewis? It had to be self-defense. How -"

Murphy cut him off. "Cassidy shot him point blank in the head while he was laying on the ground, completely unarmed. The bullet went straight down, an inch into the dirt. That's not self-defense. Even the blindest, most pro-cop judge in the world isn't going to pretend otherwise."

Amaro bit back a retort, calming himself but only barely. "What's going to happen to him?"

"I have no idea. Under normal circumstances I'd say he could get a good deal from the prosecutor, maybe even jury nullification. But now… Given the public mood, the last thing the city wants right now is to look like it's covering up more problem cops. If they don't go for at least murder two I'll be surprised."

They were silent for a while, listen to the beeping of the heart monitor, slow but even.

"I've got to report back," Murphy said finally. "Fin will come relieve you in a couple hours. You'll have to give your report as well – the sooner you can get your side of the story out, the better."

Amaro nodded numbly.

"You did some good detective work these last couple days," Murphy added, pausing at the door. "No matter how this turns out, I'm sure she'd be proud."

He nodded again, though the words had never meant less. Shock was creeping back into his system, a brittle sheet of coldness in his head and chest. He walked disjointedly to a seat and slid into it, unblinking. He couldn't get the doctor's hesitance out of his head, nor Murphy's look of pity.

_No matter how this turns out…_

But she had to get better, right? She had to, because she always did. It was her nature to defy the odds, to push through impossibilities out of sheer stubbornness. And she had to for his sake, so he could keep on thinking there was any kind of justice in the world, that people ever got what they deserved.

For a moment he wanted to scream, wanted to pound his fists against the chipped white walls and rail against the unfairness of it all, to howl his grief for Olivia, for Rollins, even for Cassidy. Lewis was dead and Olivia was alive, but the cost had been unspeakable.

Amaro closed his eyes, putting his head in his hands. He sat there, alone in the sterile lights of the hospital. And he waited for Olivia to wake up.

_End._


End file.
